


The Scent Of Malice

by paradisedraco



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bi-Curiosity, Dark Comedy, Drug Addiction, Ecstasy Addicted Draco Malfoy, Enemies to Lovers, Heavy Angst, M/M, Sarcastic Draco Malfoy, Sassy Harry Potter, Saviour Complex Harry Potter, Sexual Experimentation, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Trauma, beauty in pain, boy saves boy, trial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:53:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 50
Words: 62,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28096467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradisedraco/pseuds/paradisedraco
Summary: "𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞," 𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝, "𝐢 𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐚𝐮𝐯𝐚𝐠𝐞."𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐥. "𝐢'𝐦 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐚𝐮𝐯𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲," 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝."𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭."It was meant to be a harmless joke. When Pansy and Blaise replaced Potter's Amortentia vial with Draco's cologne to fuck with them both, that is. But they couldn't have imagined the enormity of the consequences their prank would have.Wattpad popularity: #1 in drarry, #2 in dracomalfoy, #1 in drarrysmut, #24 in harrypotterfanfic, #1 in drarryfanfic
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 94
Kudos: 450





	1. Creating a Little Chemistry (Prologue)

It was a chilly October night, barely minutes before midnight, and while all the other students of Hogwarts were fast asleep, Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson had mischief on their minds.

It had started that day, as most things tended to, in a fight between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.

"He's gone too fucking far this time," Draco had seethed, bursting into the Slytherin Common Room and slamming his books dramatically down on the table. He was always one to make an entrance.

Blaise and Pansy looked up with nothing more than lazy interest; they'd heard that specific phrase many times and didn't need to ask who, exactly, had gone too far.

"Insufferable, hateful, evil little bastard," Draco fumed, so worked up that he couldn't help but pace frantically around the room.

He ran a hand aggressively through his blonde hair, the static from his rings causing it to stick up in very un Draco-like tufts.

His friends watched on with mild amusement; they'd never seen him this angry over Potter before. And they were only a month into the first term of the year.

"Shall I tell you what he's done, or would you both prefer to gawp at me for a bit longer?" Draco snarled.

"Prefer to gawp," Blaise grinned, but Draco ignored him. The question had clearly been rhetorical.

"Fine, I'll tell you then. The little shit-"

His friends, well used to this topic by now, had zoned out. But an unkind idea was beginning to form in Pansy's mind.

"Wouldn't it be funny," she whispered to Blaise, holding back a giggle, "If we spiced up tomorrow's Potions class with a little ..... chemistry, shall we say ..... between Potter and Draco?"

Blaise frowned. "What is tomorrow's Potions class?"

Pansy was almost scarlet with the effort of repressing her laughter now, and took a deep breath to steady her emotions. "Amortentia," she choked out, before collapsing into hysterics.


	2. How to Make a Draco

Blaise watched as his friend scrawled frantically in her notebook, stopping every few seconds to splutter with laughter.

"What are you suggesting, Pans?" he asked with a confused smile.

She looked around to check that Draco was engrossed in his book on the other side of the room, and then wordlessly held up the ink-spattered parchment. A matching smile of glee spread across Blaise's face as he read what she'd written.

"Do you think that would work?" he whispered, mind racing.

"Oh, yes," she grinned. "Oblivious Potter is going to fall like a stone for this one! Can you think of anything I've missed?"

Blaise scanned the sheet again, reading quietly as he did so. "Dior Sauvage cologne.... green apple .... cherrywood broom polish .... fresh linen .... spearmint.... hair gel .... Nope, I think you've got it! Although, let me just -"

He raised his voice to a normal speaking level and turned to their friend, who'd been successfully drowning them out thus far. "Draco, can you come here for a second?"

The blonde frowned, unhappy to have been taken away from his book. "Is it not enough that you both insist on whispering and giggling like children while I'm trying to read? Must you involve me too?"

"Just come here, you brat," Blaise grinned, and when Draco reluctantly obliged, he took a deep sniff of him from his hair down to his shoulders.

"Blaise, _ugh_ , what the fuck are you doing?" Draco yelped, withdrawing like he'd been physically shocked.

"Just checking!" Blaise replied, bouncing back with a smirk. "Add vanilla," he mouthed over Draco's shoulder to Pansy.

"Subtle," she winked, scribbling it down eagerly.

"What the fuck are you two playing at?" Draco demanded, rubbing his hands over his head as if to purify himself from Blaise's touch.

His friends considered telling him for a second, then decided against it.

"Nothing," said Pansy sweetly. "Just about to watch the world burn."

"Well, could you do it quietly?" Draco huffed. "You've successfully ruined any chance I had of finishing this book in here, so I'm going up to bed. And I would prefer not to be disturbed by your moronic laughter again. Whatever you're plotting, leave me out of it."

"Whatever you say, Draco, dearest," nodded Pansy, but he was already stomping out of the Common Room. He let the portrait bang hard behind him.

"He'll soon cheer up when he sees what we have in store for him tomorrow," laughed Blaise. "He's going to love this trick. Bloody Potter. Can't think of a better way to fuck with him, actually. You're a genius, Pansy."

"I know, I know," Pansy preened. "Now, come on. We'd better get all that stuff together. We've got some Draco to brew!"

***

The next morning, as the Sixth year Slytherins and Gryffindors lined up outside Snape's dungeon, Pansy and Blaise were unable to keep still or quiet, much to Draco's irritation.

They'd dropped hints to him that morning on what they were planning to do, but he was apparently wilfully refusing to understand them; still in a bad mood from the night before.

"God, Draco, lighten up," Pansy chuckled after he sent her a particularly crushing glare.

"I wont," he sulked. "I feel like being in a bad mood, so I am going to be in a bad mood."

It was at this point that Pansy and Blaise decided it would be far funnier just not to tell Draco at all for now, and let him be just as surprised as Potter. _It's what he gets for being a miserable old git,_ Pansy thought.

So, while the other students set about collecting Ashwinder egg, rose thorn, peppermint, powdered moonstone, and pearl dust, Pansy and Blaise were subtly unloading their own ingredients under their work station.

A small vial of Draco's cologne ("He has plenty, he won't even know!" said Blaise), some of his unreasonably expensive hair gel and broom polish, a green apple to be crushed, a vanilla pod from the kitchen, a tiny extract of the fabric softener used on Draco's clothes and sheets, and some fresh spearmint from the castle gardens.

They'd been very busy that morning, for sure.

Pansy grabbed some rosewater and pearl dust from the counter just to give colour and sparkle to the potion, and then set about secretly sliding the ingredients into the cauldron. The plan, meanwhile, was that Blaise would chop the actual Amortentia ingredients so as not to draw Snape's attention, and Pansy prayed for the entire lesson that he wouldn't come over.

Luckily, he seemed more interested in Longbottom's cauldron, which was smoking violently for some reason no matter what he did to it - Neville had never been very good at Potions - and this kept the professor's beady eyes thankfully about as far away from Blaise and Pansy's station as it was possible to be.

Pansy was delighted to find, as she slipped in the 'Draco Ingredients', that the concoction was bubbling away exactly as it was supposed to. A glance into Draco's cauldron in front of them (because of course he'd have it perfectly made, even with Goyle to contend with) confirmed that Blaise and Pansy's mix looked just like the real thing. It even glittered the same way, and was the same fetching shade of pink.

And it smelled - no, _reeked_ \- of Draco Malfoy. Every last drop of it. And Pansy was delighted.

Towards the end of the lesson, Snape wandered round and placed a little heart-shaped glass bottle on everyone's work station, to contain what little potion they had made, and everyone got to emptying their cauldrons precariously into the neck.

While Draco inadvertently played the perfect part in distracting Potter with insults, it was not at all difficult for Pansy to slip down the front and deftly swap the sparkling pink liquid in Potter's vial for a replacement bottle of her own - identical in looks, but obviously very different in smell.

She loosened the cap on Potter and Granger's bottle for a little sniff as she crept back to her own desk, and smiled. It was heavenly: sweet but not cloying, with notes of roasting coffee and dark chocolate. This was good shit!

"And now it's time for the show," Blaise whispered eagerly as she took her place beside him once more, his eyes never leaving the dark-haired Gryffindor two rows away from them.

Pansy stared too, transfixed, as Potter's hand reached for the heart-shaped bottle, and he began to unscrew the lid.

Snape had warned everybody not to sniff their potions while it was in the cauldron, in order to let the potency reach its full potential in the little bottle, but now it was time for the moment of truth.

The suspense burnt through Pansy's body like a live wire, even causing her to shake slightly. Potter had it in his hand, the lid was off, his eyes were closed as he raised it to his nose -

There was a loud gasp, and the bottle was shattered, dropped from the height onto the flagstone floor. Pink liquid spattered the floor and walls all around Potter, but he didn't even seem to notice. His eyes were wide with shock and he looked like he might really be sick.

Pansy fought the urge to scream in triumph - it had worked!! But instead, she skipped forwards and performed a token Cleaning Charm - she didn't want anyone else unexpectedly smelling Malfoy in the fake Amortentia and ruining the fun. And what fun it was!

"Thank you, Parkinson," drawled Snape. "At least someone has brains around here. 50 points from Gryffindor for your carelessness, Mr. Potter."

Potter didn't even blink; still staring into space with that dazed expression. "I think I ought to leave, Professor, I feel quite unwell," he murmured, and then left without even waiting for Snape's response.

Blaise's hand found Pansy's under the desk for a quick high-five, and they shared a secret grin. Draco, meanwhile, was bemused. "What the fuck is wrong with Potter?" he hissed.

"Let's just say he might have smelt something _interesting_ in his Amortentia," Blaise winked, and as usual Draco didn't get the hint.

"Interesting?"

Pansy sighed, and pulled Draco to one side by the arm. "You're so oblivious, Draco. When the class is dismissed, we're going to follow Granger and Weasley, and then you'll see. This is going to be a good meltdown."


	3. Overheard

Harry was shaking, literally shaking, with the shock. For a second, he tried to convince himself that he'd misinterpreted the scent, but no, it was unmistakeable.

He'd been in enough classes with Malfoy, been shoved around by Malfoy enough times, fought him for the Snitch enough times, to know exactly what the other boy smelt like, without a shadow of a doubt.

Dior Sauvage.

Green apple.

Vanilla.

Even the scent of his fabric softener and broom polish were recognisable in there.

In the fucking Amortentia.

Harry pressed his burning forehead to the cool wall of the dungeon while he waited for Ron and Hermione to appear, too shaken to go much further without them. What the fuck was going on?

He'd expected to detect something more feminine in the scent, at the very least, though admittedly Harry had recently been wondering if he was bisexual.

But he thought that this questioning was because of boys like Cedric Diggory, or Oliver Wood, or even the Weasley twins at a push, in an illicitly sexy 'friend's-older-brother' kind of way.

Not because of Draco fucking Lucius Malfoy.

Harry tried to steady his breathing. _It was unmistakeable,_ he thought again. _Amortentia doesn't lie. I recognised it. Fucking hell._

How could he be attracted to Draco Malfoy the most in the world and not know it? God, had he confused his hatred for sexual tension all this time?

Thinking about it, he felt as though he still despised the other boy, but there was no way that the batch he'd brewed with Hermione had been anything other than perfect, and who was he to argue with the love potion?

"Harry, would you care to explain what the bloody hell just happened?" Hermione snapped angrily, jerking him out of his thoughts as she swept out of the classroom.

"You were being fucking weird in there, mate," Ron informed him, following closely behind her. "Is there something actually wrong with you?"

Harry looked around nervously. More students were pouring out of the class as they stood there, and he didn't want to risk being overheard.

"Don't be so loud, both of you," he said, grabbing his friends by the arm and pulling them down the corridor behind him.

"I just don't understand why you had to be so weird, Harry!" Hermione pouted as they walked. "Or why you smashed it, when we worked so hard to get it right. I didn't even get to smell it for myself, and now I suppose I'll never know-"

"Hermione," he hissed, cutting her off mid-sentence once they were safely round the corner and out of sight. "I smelled Dior Sauvage."

Her eyes widened, but she tried to play it cool. "I'm sure lots of people wear Dior Sauvage, Harry," she tried.

"Not like this, they don't. It's very specific. Besides, there was something else in there... hair gel, I think. And green apple for sure. Broom polish, too. The good kind."

Hermione bit her lip anxiously. "God, Harry. You fancy Malfoy? More than anyone else in the world?"

Harry ran his hands through his hair and groaned. "I don't fucking know! Apparently, yes! I still feel like I just want to choke him out in a totally not-sexual, totally trying-to-kill-him way - but I guess my dick has other ideas that I didn't know about!"

"It is a weird choice for you," Ron conceded. "Although I guess it explains the obsession with him?"

"I was never obsessed-"

His friends gave him a long, hard stare. He quickly re-evaluated his response.

"Fine, maybe a bit. But only because he doesn't leave me alone! Nobody irritates the life out of me the way he does. God, I want to slap his smug face so badly every time I look at him."

There was a silence, where Hermione and Ron didn't know if they should laugh or skip straight to comforting him. Harry turned to them, wild-eyed, his hair sticking up manically where he'd shoved his fists through it.

"Be honest, should I just kill myself?" he asked.

"Fucking hell, Harry."

***

Draco couldn't believe what he was hearing, glad Pansy and Blaise had dragged him down the corridor to hear it. Potter, attracted to him? Enough to smell him in his Amortentia?

The idea stroked his ego enormously. Potter. Perfect, insufferable Potter. Vulnerable to Draco's charms.

Lots of people were attracted to Draco, he knew that. It was the whole sexy, insufferable, Daddy-issues, rich boy thing he had going on. But Potter? That was new.

"Didn't know he was a poof," he muttered incredulously to Blaise and Pansy, who didn't respond.

Both were trying to smother hysterical laughter, which annoyed Draco. This was far more fascinating than it was funny, for now. Maybe he'd laugh about it later, but for now his brain was busy calculating how to use this against Potter in the most hurtful way.

Part of him was annoyed with Potter for changing the dynamic between them so dramatically. How was he meant to be a dick to him now if Potter would be constantly fantasising about him like everyone else? What if he liked it?

It made it weird.

It made it ... gay.

Draco couldn't afford that on his perfect Pureblood reputation.

_God, has Potter been loving how I treat him the whole time? Is he a little freak? Does he rile me up on purpose to get a reaction and then get off over it later?_

Potter had at least seemed shocked when talking to Granger and the Weasel, but still, like he'd said himself: it was unmistakable. Those were Draco's signature scents. That's what Potter had smelt in the fucking love potion.

This changed everything.

And God, Draco was going to have fun with it.


	4. A Solitary Butterfly

"I suppose you've come to tell me the news," Ginny said sulkily the second Harry's head appeared in the doorway of the Common Room.

"The- the news?" he asked, surprised.

"About you and your thing for Malfoy. Fuck you, by the way. I thought we had something serious. Thought you might ask me to be your girlfriend soon." She shook her head with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "But all this time, you were faking it."

"Ginny, I wasn't!" Harry protested. His cheeks flamed. They weren't even alone in the Common Room, he hated her for making a scene. "I just came to see you this evening because I like you-"

" _Please_." She laughed unkindly. "Did you think about him every time we did it, or just most times? If you closed your eyes, could you pretend I had blonde hair?"

"You're being very unfair, Ginny. I don't know what you heard, but-"

"Oh, I heard enough. Your Amortentia smell is Dior Sauvage and green apple. Really subtle, Harry. Bloody original."

"I didn't ask for this to happen, Ginny!" Harry snapped. "You know it isn't something I'd have any control over! And for your information, I don't think I feel anything for him consciously and I would far rather be with you. But you're being really nasty about this."

"So it's true, then? You aren't even going to try and deny it?"

Harry groaned. "It's true that I smelt what you think I smelt in my Amortentia, yes. But let me assure you, Ginny, that as far as I am aware, I still feel nothing but hatred for that boy. I'm bloody straight! I think."

"I can't believe this. How do you think it felt, Harry, to hear the news from a fucking Second Year?" Ginny demanded, tucking her red hair aggressively behind her ears.  
"To find out in the Great Hall from a thirteen-year-old that the boy I've been seeing is gay, for someone he told me was his 'mortal enemy'. I look like a bloody mug now, don't I?"

"It's been one day since that fucking lesson and I only told Ron and Hermione, I've got no idea how that even got round so fast!" Harry glared, bemused. "They wouldn't have told anybody."

"Then I suppose you were overheard," snapped Ginny. "That's not my problem, Harry."

"I don't know what your problem is, to be honest, Ginny," Harry frowned. "I've been thinking about it and I've realised it doesn't have to mean anything-"

"Maybe not to you!" Ginny's eyes brimmed with angry tears. "But I really liked you, Harry. So it matters to me. And it matters to everyone else."

"Ok, fine, so you care what everyone thinks. And everyone knows, do they?"

Ginny nodded.

"Fantastic," said Harry sarcastically. "Really cool. Good chat, Gin. Let's do it again sometime."

And with that, he turned on his heel and stormed out of the Common Room to get some air, breathing heavily with frustration as he did so.

_God, when Malfoy finds out, I'm fucked. Not literally, but I'm in a lot of trouble. Maybe I should bloody move schools._

He became aware of a few weird stares as he walked down the corridors, weirder than normal, that was. So Ginny was right. Everyone did know already.

It was only once he was outside in the fresh air that Harry realised he was crying a little. Mortified, he glanced around quickly to ensure that no one else was around; thankfully they weren't.

He made his way up a steep slope towards the forest, where he found a rock to lean against with his back to the castle.

And there, in the haven provided by the shade, he allowed himself to fully burst into tears.

It felt to Harry like the situation would've been less wildly unfair if he actually knew he liked Malfoy. What did that bloody potion know that he didn't?

He slid down onto his knees in the grass and forced himself to think of Malfoy in that way, in a sexual way. To think of him stripped, think about running his own hands all over that toned bare skin, his muscled Seeker figure, reaching right up and kissing him on that cruel red mouth.

The image wasn't as unpleasant as he'd expected, just unfamiliar. But it didn't do anything special for him.

Harry screwed up his eyes in focus, determined to think harder.

He pictured Malfoy's body against his own, behind his own, his long ringed fingers tangled through Harry's dark hair, his hot breath in his ear breathing out "Good boy" as he bent him over the bed...

The smallest flicker of a butterfly began to rise in his stomach, and Harry's eyes snapped open. _Nope, nope, nope. Not happening._

He scrambled to his feet, as if that would help keep the feeling down. It was gone as soon as it had started, barely imperceptible - certainly nowhere near Amortentia levels of attraction. And certainly nothing like what he'd felt for Ginny before. But there was something, even a tiny something.

 _I could probably give myself that tiny feeling over Ron if I thought that hard, for fuck's sake,_ Harry convinced himself, and though it was a weird picture, it actually relieved him a little. He didn't fancy Draco Malfoy. He was still himself.

Harry wiped his eyes gently under his glasses, and sighed heavily. He was still crying, even while fantasising.

"What have you done to me, Malfoy?" he wondered aloud.

After a few more minutes he began to get cold and decided it was time to head back down to the castle; not to dinner, though. He didn't want to risk seeing Malfoy, as it was entirely likely he'd heard "the news" too, as Ginny had put it.

Hopefully Ron and Hermione would understand, and if not, he found it hard to care. This wasn't their problem to deal with, and they didn't understand how massive it was to him already.

Or how massive it would become.


	5. Confrontation

On the third day after the Potions class, there was an important Quidditch match.

Harry's heart sank into his stomach as soon as he remembered the fixture was Gryffindor v Slytherin.

He'd managed to avoid Malfoy entirely since The Incident, but there was no avoiding him today - he was the opposition Seeker, for fuck's sake. He'd be all over him.

"Just don't look at him, mate," was Ron's advice. "Block him out."

His friend was still weirded out that the revelation that Harry might be in love with the boy who'd bullied them all for years, but he did his best to be supportive.

"If he's cruel to you, Harry, let it spur you on to do better than him," Hermione added, and Harry nodded.

"Thanks guys, I'll try," he said. "I don't think Slytherin are going to take it easy on me, though. I've got a bad feeling about this match."

"Are you... do you think you're looking forward to seeing him?" Hermione asked tentatively.

Harry blanched. "About a million times less than normal. And I usually want to see him about as much as I want to cut my own arm off with a rusty spoon."

"Still pretending you hate him, then," Ginny piped up from across the room. "I see."

Harry sighed; he hadn't even known she was there.

"Ginny, can you stop being so bitter?" he asked. "I told you before that I do hate him, and I want to be with you if you'll let me. The only barrier between us right now is you, so stop pretending I've done anything wrong."

"I will when you stop pretending you haven't!" she sneered before storming off, leaving the three of them lost for words.

"She's spirited," Ron offered after a second. "Gets it from Mum."

"Thanks, Ronald."

Harry groaned. "I really don't need this stress. I mean, I'm already anxious enough about the game - if Malfoy lets me get that far without beating the shit out of me, that is."

"You'll be fine, mate," Ron insisted, and Hermione agreed. Secretly, though, both were equally terrified for him. They knew all too well what Malfoy was capable of.

"Come on," said Ron after letting Harry mope for another minute. "We'll go down together. I've got you."

And he had, for now. But however bad Harry had imagined Draco would be on the pitch, he was a thousand times worse. And all the support in the world from Ron couldn't make Harry feel any less awful over it.

"Hard, Potter?" the blonde called with a gloating grin the second the Gryffindors flew onto the pitch.

"You wish," Harry managed, but it sounded feeble even to him. He steadied himself on his broom, shit, why was he so shaky?

"I suppose you're going to think about me in the showers after this, are you?" Malfoy taunted him. "Better lock the door to the Slytherin ones, boys, before he gets any ideas!"

The other Slytherins guffawed and Harry felt like a sex criminal.

"I haven't done anything wrong, I'm not a fucking pervert," he had to remind himself. "And even if I was attracted to him, I still wouldn't be in the wrong."

It threw him massively off his game, though. As Draco soared effortlessly around the pitch, Harry struggled to make a decent turn without wobbling off.

And the Slytherin onlookers in the stands only made it worse. Harry noticed they'd had different banners drawn up for this match to their usual kind, and most of the messages focused around the theme of Malfoy's "broom" and what they expected Harry would like to do with it.

Several of these banners had been angrily confiscated by McGonagall throughout the match, but Harry had still seen them, and still been humiliated. He felt like the messages would be burned into his brain forever, like everyone would be laughing at him forever.

By the time the Slytherins eventually caught the Snitch, Oliver Wood was absolutely fuming, and Harry left the pitch as quickly as he could, mortified. He'd never played so badly in his life, even as a First Year.

"Hurrying off for a wank, Potter?" Malfoy jeered after him, and Harry broke into a half run, not stopping until he reached the showers and could tear his kit off in peace to stand under the hot water and cry.

He stayed there until long after the others had left for dinner, even Ron, but he was only calmed slightly by the feeling of the hot water soaking over his skin.

At least no one could look at him in here, though, no one could laugh and make assumptions or cruel jokes about what was happening to him. No one could make unsolicited comments or show him crude banners, or shove him around. He was hidden.

It felt to Harry as though a light switch had suddenly been turned on over the whole of Hogwarts and illuminated this desire for Draco, like someone had planted the feeling in him against his will and then lit him up like a Christmas tree for everyone to stare at and use for their own enjoyment. It was thoroughly unpleasant.

"God, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him," muttered Harry angrily as the water cascaded over his face.

Loathing coursed through his entire body like acid, making every atom vibrate with wrath. It was as though his body was purely powered by rage against Draco Malfoy, and Harry hated it. He didn't even recognise himself.

He dressed slowly, avoiding the mirror, and made his way anxiously down to the Great Hall. He wouldn't eat anything, he felt too drained and upset, but he'd see Ron and Hermione at least and that might alleviate some of his suffering.

***

Draco, meanwhile, was feeling pretty damn good.

He knew he'd played better than ever that day, and as well as the attention he would receive for winning the match that evening, there was the added interest because of the whole ... Potter situation.

"Is Potter _madly_ in love with you, Draco?" some younger Slytherin girls simpered over dinner at the Great Hall.

"I can see why he would be," one whispered boldly, and the group collapsed into giggles.

"Has he made a move on you?"

"Have you had to fight him off?"

Draco preened, smoothing back his hair arrogantly as the questions were fired around him.

"He's kept his distance... for now," he smirked. "Probably knows I'd knock him out if he tried anything. Besides, he was too busy embarrassing himself on his broom today, in case any of you noticed."

"Stop being such a prick, Malfoy," Ron snapped, striding over from the Gryffindor benches. "You said yourself that he hasn't done anything to you. And he's told us he doesn't want to."

"Look at the state of you, Weasel," Malfoy looked up at the newcomer, delighted. "Got your panties in a twist because Potter fancies me? Are you jealous? Oh, this is _good_."

"I am not jealous," Ron huffed, but it was too late; half the Hall appeared to be laughing at him.

"No, I think you are," Malfoy replied, licking his lips with anticipation. He loved a drama.

"I think you're going to have to comfort Potter later after his big defeat on the pitch, what do you say, Weaselby? You and those creepy brothers of yours could Eiffel Tower him."

Ron pulled a disgusted face. "You're a scummy little bastard, you know that, Malfoy?" he spat.

"And your best friend can't get enough of it," Malfoy shot back. "Now he's finished riding your slaggy little sister, that is- _AGHHH_! You've broken my fucking nose, you moron!"

Blood dripped all over the table and Malfoy leapt to his feet, making no attempt to stem the crimson flood. It poured menacingly over his pale, sharp features, looking as though a wide gash had been sliced through his entire face.

Ron bid a hasty retreat back to the Gryffindor table to hide with Hermione, who was very impressed.

"That's almost as good as how I did it in Third Year," she noted under her breath. "Good work, Ronald."

"You'll regret this, you fucking ginger tramp," Malfoy growled across the room. Blood dripped over his lips as he spoke, but he didn't seem to care.

"Staring at something, Potter?" he lashed out at the dark-haired boy, who was sat, open-mouthed with horror at the scene that had unfolded. "Wanna lick it off my mouth?"

"I'd rather die," Harry managed, and Draco flashed him an excruciating glare before he turned and strode out of the Hall, trailing scarlet openly behind him.

Pansy and Blaise allowed themselves a minute of hysterical laughter before they followed their friend to the refuge of the Slytherin Dorms.

"This is unbelievable," Pansy giggled as they walked. "Not even a week since we pulled that prank, and already I've heard Potter's getting kicked off the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Weaselby's punched Draco in the face, and apparently Potter was even crying in the showers for two hours this evening, that's why he was so late to dinner."

"It's incredible," Blaise agreed. "Dramatic, but incredible. Amazing what one little interference can do."

"Do you think we ought to tell Draco it isn't real?"

Blaise thought, then shook his head. "It's made all the more hilarious by Draco's gloating, I wouldn't want to take that away from him."

"You're right," Pansy agreed with a grin. "Let's keep it between the two of us, then."


	6. Promiscuous Boy

That night, Harry had his first dream about Malfoy since the incident.

It wasn't an erotic dream - more just an extension of Malfoy's real-life behaviours - but it still made Harry deeply uncomfortable, as he felt it signalled a deeper level of consciousness being accessed by the other boy.

"Even in my fucking sleep I can't escape you," he muttered, rubbing his exhausted eyes. "Are you going to torment me forever?"

The images of the dream flashed hauntingly over his eyelids; Malfoy, blood dripping from his nose, standing over Harry and laughing.

He shuddered. There was an anxious knot in his stomach and it tightened as he got himself ready for the day, as if his body was fighting for him to stay in his bed with the drapes shut, away from the rest of the school.

 _You can't do that, idiot_ , he told himself mentally. _You have to hold your head high. Don't let them win._

But it was challenging. He'd begun skipping breakfast following Malfoy's dramatic episode with all the blood in the Great Hall, which had created an image that had clearly stuck with him pretty vividly. He couldn't risk another display like that any time soon.

The hardest blow, however, came when Oliver Wood cornered him as he was leaving Astronomy on his own, and asked him to "temporarily step down" from the position of Seeker on the Gryffindor team.

Harry had been expecting it of course, after his recent performance and the clear indication that he wouldn't be playing much better any time soon, but it still felt like a punch to the stomach.

He'd been so proud of that position and had been unchallenged on it for several years, yet now Malfoy had deprived him of even that with his cruelty.

"The youngest Weasley will be taking your place on the team - though emphasis is on 'for now', Potter. I'd like you back as soon as you're fit," Oliver warned him seriously. "Gin's good, but she isn't you. Sort your shit out, yeah?"

"I'm trying," Harry muttered, embarrassed. "It isn't exactly all my shit, is it?"

Oliver shrugged. "I don't know about that. I just know about Quidditch. I hope whoever's shit it is, it's sorted soon, though."

Harry sighed. "Ok, thanks, Oliver. You're just doing what you've got to do, I guess."

He turned to leave down the winding stairs of the tower, but was blocked by a familiar figure, who forced him back round the corner and out of sight of the classrooms.

"Did you literally just get kicked off the Quidditch team over this, Potter?" Draco asked, delighted. "Do you literally fancy me too much to play? That's disgusting!"

"You made me too miserable to play," Harry snapped, but he realised after he'd said the words that they might not be as cutting as he'd thought.

"And for the record, I don't fancy you. I don't know what happened in that class and I don't know what you heard, but whatever it was, it wasn't what it sounded like."

"So the most powerful love potion in the world was lying to you, was it? It's a fucking potion for Christ's sake, Potter, and it was made by Granger. It works. Get over yourself."

Harry scoffed. "Me, get over myself? What about _you_ getting over me? Seriously, you get the tiny inkling that someone might want you and it goes straight to your head-"

"It isn't the 'inkling' that 'someone might' want me, Potter, it's _evidence_ that _you_ want me," Malfoy interrupted. "Evidence that you want me more than than anything else in the world, I might add. Of course that would interest me, given how you normally act towards me. It's just an excellent weapon in my armoury to use against the creature I despise most in the world."

He paused, running a pretty hand through his soft blonde hair and assessing the other boy almost flirtatiously. "It's hilarious that you think my interest in the situation is because it's the only time someone has been attracted to me, by the way."

"That's funny to you?"

"Oh yeah, terribly funny," replied Malfoy, inspecting his silver rings with an air of forced boredom. "What you don't understand, Potter, is that everyone is attracted to me. I've banged my way through half my house and half yours too, so be humble."

"So you're easy, then?" Harry sneered. "Just unbuckle your belt for anyone who looks at you, do you? Nice that you don't discriminate."

"Oh, but I do discriminate," Draco replied with a cruel smile. "Which is the main reason why you're never going to get it. You disgusting little Half-Blood."

"Wow, huge scandal, Draco Malfoy can't think of a better insult again than to comment on someone's blood status! The way he does in every fucking argument he ever has where he isn't winning!" Harry laughed coldly. "Pathetic."

"You shut your mouth, Potter, or I'll fuck that vile little ex-girlfriend of yours," Draco hissed, and he moved closer to force Harry to look up at him. "I'd have to do her from behind with the lights off, but I reckon I could do it if it would hurt you at all."

He paused, and a cruel smile played across his lips. "Suppose that's how she liked it anyway, isn't it?" he asked. "So she didn't have to remember it was you? I wouldn't blame her. God, the idea of having sex with you turns my stomach."

"So you've thought about it, then?" Harry responded.

"About as much as I've thought about fucking your dad's corpse."

Harry felt violently sick. "That was a horrendous thing to say and I hope you fucking regret it one day," he managed, valiantly fighting the urge to just lash out and cause some actual damage. "I hope you die, I really do. You're an evil piece of shit, Draco Malfoy."

Draco laughed again, and winked at Harry with a click of his tongue before walking away, leaving the other boy shuddering with rage.

"I wish I'd just fucking hit him when I had the chance," he seethed, feeling the anger radiate off his skin. "God, the things I'd do to that boy. He's going to regret what he's done today."

But Harry knew he wouldn't really do anything about it. He'd go to bed early, and feel shit and not tell his friends, and then wake up the next morning for another day of being walked all over by Malfoy.

"When did my life get so fucking fantastic?"


	7. A Little Experiment

Hermione had assured Harry that people would get swiftly bored of the gossip and the hassle would stop within a week, but three weeks after the fateful Potions class, the bullying was getting worse than ever.

The Slytherins thought it was beyond hilarious that Harry had lost his place on the Quidditch team over the incident with Malfoy, and took great pleasure in spraying large amounts of Dior Sauvage around, or eating crunchy green apples in front of Harry, and sneering "Potter" at him to get a reaction.

Draco joined in too, of course, but often found that he preferred just to watch the other boy's reactions with a mixture of revulsion and amusement.

He didn't know what fascinated him so much about the idea of Potter's attraction to him - it was true what he'd told him; he was not short of admirers by any means. Whatever it was, it fed his vanity excellently, and he found himself spending even more time on his appearance to get as much attention as he could.

Harry, meanwhile, was having an enormous identity crisis over coming to terms with his memory of the Amortentia experience. He'd thought about it enough that he had convinced himself maybe it wasn't even Draco he'd smelt after all - like Hermione had said, plenty of people wore Dior Sauvage.

Or maybe he'd imagined the more complex, more obviously 'Draco' notes in the scent - or maybe they weren't even Draco's scents?

 _You know what you smelt_ , taunted the voice in his head, but he refused to let himself believe it.

 _I'll just do a little experiment,_ he decided instead. _Just once, just to make sure. Then I can stop thinking about it._

Making another batch of Amortentia was out of the question, of course. Snape kept all the ingredients under lock and key in the store cupboard, and Harry was already far enough on the professor's bad side that term with all his vial-smashing and running out of classes.

No, there was only one option, and testing the Amortentia wasn't it.

The next Quidditch match was to be Slytherin versus Ravenclaw, and while Draco was looking forward to showing off immensely, Harry was plotting on how to sneak into the Slytherin dorms while the other boy was occupied.

"I'll just test out the scent of one of his sweaters, and maybe his sheets," he mused, "And swipe some of his hair gel, just to be sure."

When he told Ron and Hermione of his plan, they burst out laughing.

"Did you literally just say you're going to break into his dorm and sniff his sheets while he's playing Quidditch?" Hermione wheezed, wiping a tear from one eye before descending into uncontrollable giggles again. "And there's still a doubt in your mind as to whether you fancy him?"

"That's the creepiest thing I've ever heard, mate, but you do you," Ron added, equally hysterical.

"It's not like that," Harry huffed, but he realised with irritation that he couldn't explain it away any better than how they'd put it.

"He's going to steal his hair gel," Ron choked, and Hermione's laughter echoed off the walls delightedly. "Why don't you just lick his toothbrush while you're at it, Harry? Are you going to sniff his boxers too?"

"If you can't take this seriously, I won't tell you guys things," Harry sulked.

Ron's eyes widened in panic. "No, please do tell us," he begged. "It provides the best laughs I get these days."

This was the final straw for Harry, who glowered at them both before stomping off, muttering about disrespect.

"Thought you were waiting till the match to go sheet-sniffing," Ron called after him.

"Shut it, Ron!"

***

Saturday morning arrived, the day of the match, and Harry was ready. He waited till the other students had flooded out of the castle to the stands, then made his way slowly down to the Slytherin dormitories.

"Password?" the serpent on the portrait demanded, and Harry sighed.

"I don't know it but can you let this one slide?" he asked in Parseltongue. The snake looked surprised, as far as a snake can ever look surprised, and willingly swung back to allow his entrance.

"The gift," it hissed after him appreciatively. "Not often one of you comes by."

"Thanks," Harry nodded awkwardly, and then wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs. So this was where the serpents slept.

He was slightly concerned that he wouldn't be able to find Draco's bed, but it was clear after a brief surveillance of the room which was his.

Who else would have their emerald silk sheets so pristine and sharply folded in? Who else would have a robe with the Malfoy family crest hanging from their bedpost?

As Harry approached the bed, he took a small amount of pleasure in the knowledge that Draco would probably be disappointed not to see him. He knew the blonde played better when Harry was there for him to show off to, and to deprive him of this was very pleasing.

Thinking of Ron, his cheeks flared, but nevertheless Harry steeled himself, then got on his knees on the hard wood floorboards and pressed his face into the pillow to inhale deeply.

His heart began to pound harder as the scent flooded what felt like his entire nervous system - unmistakable, again.

It was deliriously appealing to Harry, perhaps not because it was Malfoy's specifically, but because there was something so attractively masculine and rich in it that it made his head spin.

He pulled back the covers with shaking hands, careful not to crease them as he did so, and then did the same thing down the soft sheets where Draco slept. He stayed on his knees for a while, drinking in the scent, then groaned and sank his face into his hands. He was getting aroused, he couldn't deny it, and he hated himself for it. Hot embarrassment coursed through his body even though no one was around to see, and loathing quickly followed.

"This is pathetic," Harry muttered, but it didn't stop him from leaning to breathe in the scent of Draco's robe too, and loving it.

He found himself closing his eyes and imagining what it would be like to lie here, in Draco's bed, the scent of cologne and hair gel and fabric softener washing luxuriously over his skin. What would the scent smell like up close, not in the usual way he was close to Draco (previously only ever when fighting him), but in a different way...?

_Stop it, stop it, stop it._

Harry pulled back from the fabric as quickly as if he'd been scorched, and groaned again, loudly. Fucking hell. _So it worked,_ he thought grimly. _I have a huge crush on Draco Malfoy._


	8. Spit

Following this realisation, Harry's next decision was that he was to carry on acting the way he had before: as if he had no interest whatsoever in the other boy.

Draco was insufferable enough as it was (even if he was also hot), and Harry didn't want to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him, and validating his vanity.

No, instead he would ignore the other boy entirely, hope he got bored, and then forget about the whole thing. Hopefully.

But Draco Malfoy did not take kindly to being ignored. In fact, he was outraged.

"Potter's in _love_ with me, for Christ's sake," he complained to Pansy after a particularly brutal rejection. "I don't know why he's acting like he isn't. I mean, he's hardly noticed me all day - and I made sure my shirt rode up when I took my jumper off in Divination and everything!"

"Inexplicable," grinned Pansy.

"I'm going to have to start being more obnoxious to him," Draco decided, talking more to himself than to the girl. "He deserves to suffer a lot more than he is."

He ran a hand through his immaculate hair - it had taken him 45 precious minutes that morning, and Potter had barely even looked at it.

What could he do to get Potter's attention again? Draco had reluctantly realised his ego was growing quite dependent on the other boy's confirmed attraction to him, and it wasn't something he wanted to lose.

Luckily, dinner time was approaching, the sole meal Potter seemed not to skip these days, and Malfoy deliberately chose a seat in the Great Hall that he knew would be near the section of the Gryffindor table usually chosen by Potter and his little friends.

And he was not disappointed - they arrived like clockwork at 6pm to take their usual seats. Granger had her monkeys well trained.

"Chosen a seat with a view, have you, Potter?" Draco asked, already enjoying himself.

Harry didn't look up from his plate, which dampened Draco's mood slightly, but he supposed he'd just have to try a little harder.

"Apparently you didn't attend the Quidditch match last week," he continued. "Did you get kicked out of the stands for public indecency? Or just not fancy being shown by Chang how to fly without having a nervous breakdown over the opposition Seeker?"

No response.

"Not that I didn't bang her after, of course, but at least she can control herself while she's actually on the pitch."

Harry's hands formed tight fists round his cutlery, and he hadn't touched his food. Draco noticed this with spiteful triumph: he was getting under his skin, alright.

Draco tossed a few more inflammatory comments over to the Gryffindor table as he finished his meal, then his friends stood up to follow him out and he turned to Harry one more time. "Please don't try and break the Slytherin Common Room door down again tonight, Potter, it's getting obsessive."

With that, Harry could take no more, and grabbed Malfoy by the front of his robes to drag him aside himself before he could just leave with his friends.

"You're a coward, Draco Malfoy," Harry hissed, he pulled him roughly away from everyone's watching eyes and out of the Hall. "You talk so loud when your friends are there and say all these awful things when you know I won't react, it's cowardice."

Malfoy shrugged him off aggressively and stared down at Harry's face, his eyes burning.

"I'm pretty sure I say 'awful things' when they aren't there too, if you remember our nice little chat the other day," he snapped. "And I'm more than happy to do it now too, away from everyone. Is this loud enough for you? Because I've got plenty to say."

Harry didn't reply, too busy trying to steady his beating heart. Surely it must be loud enough for Malfoy to hear the impression he was making on him?

The boy was very attractive, but right now Harry was far more focused on how intimidating he was - the blonde was a good three inches taller and always knew exactly what to say to make Harry want to disappear.

"Come on, Potter," Malfoy goaded him, annoyed by the lack of response. "You wanted my attention. You've got it."

"What I really want is for you to leave me alone," Harry managed. He backed into the wall as he spoke, but forced himself to retain eye contact. Who would break it first?

Malfoy scoffed. "Me, leave you alone? Which of us fully assaulted the other just now and dragged him out of the Hall to get him alone? Which of us smelled the other in his Amortentia? Which got kicked off the Quidditch team for being too focused on the other Seeker?"

Harry made no reply, so Draco answered himself: "Oh yeah, you, you, and you. Plus you went round the whole school telling everyone you were in love with me, which is tragic."

"That wasn't me!" Harry snapped back, enraged now. "I don't know who that was, but the whole Amortentia thing is the most awful and mortifying thing to ever happen to me, so I'd have been the last person to spread it."

"You could just have denied it," the other boy smirked, knowing he was being unfair and loving it.

"Oh yeah, hadn't thought of that," said Harry sarcastically. "Oh wait, no - I _did_ do that, but no one fucking believed me because you wouldn't shut up about it!"

Malfoy smiled a hateful, condescending little smile. "I feel like you need to just stop hurting yourself over me, Potter," he said. "It's getting embarrassing."

Harry felt like he was on fire. "You are the one obsessing over this, Malfoy, and you are the one hurting me!" he shouted, no longer caring if people came out of the Hall and heard them.

"And you're acting like I've molested you! Have I even made a single move on you? Have I made one inappropriate comment? No. Yet you make everything tense, and sexual, and weird."

Malfoy's cheeks flamed at this accusation, and he felt forced to retaliate.

"Really, Potter, you're deluding yourself if you think any of this tension comes from me," he said cruelly. "I mean, look at you and look at me. How on a million years did you ever see that working?"

Somewhere in his rush of humiliation and hurt, Harry realised that Malfoy's expression mirrored his own feelings exactly. He looked angry, but like he was hurting somehow, and if he hated Harry so much, why was he leaning in...?

"You're genuinely revolting," Malfoy continued, his mouth barely inches from Harry's. "I mean, the idea that you even have the audacity to-"

On a sudden, almost uncontrollable impulse, Harry closed the distance between the two of them and kissed Draco hard on the mouth, anything to stop him saying those cruel, hurtful things, anything to satisfy his own desire. He'd never wanted to be kissed so badly in his life.

Draco froze in horror; there was half a second of contact before he shoved Harry with all his might back against the wall, threw back his own head and spat violently in the other boy's face.

Both boys were trembling with shock and exhilaration, Harry didn't even reach up to wipe the spit with his sleeve but let it drip from his cheek loudly onto the stone floor.

"You wanted to taste my spit, Potter," Draco snarled in the cruelest voice Harry had ever heard. "That's the only way you're ever going to get it, you freak. Lick. It. Up."

With that, he turned and strode shakily off down the corridor, leaving Harry equally turned on and disgusted with himself for his behaviour. _How am I going to get over this?_ He asked himself.


	9. Blood

After he was left outside the Hall by Malfoy that night, there was no better word for Harry's emotional state from that point onwards than destroyed.

He was plagued over the following days and weeks by constant obsessive thoughts about the other boy, driven mad when he couldn't see him, and constantly trying to find a way to get his attention, all while simultaneously despising him. All in all, this made for a pretty fragile disposition.

Malfoy had naturally been even more vile since the incident - Harry knew he shouldn't have tried to kiss him, but found it hard to regret at the same time.

Even weeks after his lips had last been kissed he kept touching them, deepening his infatuation every time he remembered that Malfoy's mouth had touched them too, he'd literally kissed Draco Malfoy, and it was dizzying, even with the memory of how hard he'd been rejected afterwards.

Draco found his hand to also be frequently drawn to his lips after the event, though more in frustration and disgust than anything else. He still couldn't believe Potter had had the sheer audacity to try something like that on him; couldn't the bastard take a fucking hint?!

He replayed the incident in his head relatively often as he did this, mentally watching the half-devastated, half-aroused expression on Potter's face as he'd shoved him back and spat on him.

It was gross but also intriguing to Draco that he could have that effect on the other boy after all the hatred they'd shared for one another. It was weird to think that that was all one-sided now.

Yet the more Malfoy hated Harry and the nastier he was to him, the more persistently interested he became in response. It was the only way he'd ever known how to relate to the other boy, the only attention he could get off him, and he relished it. He craved a reaction from him, any reaction, even disgust. _Spit on me again._

But Draco, unnerved by Harry's reaction the first time around, didn't spit on him again, sticking instead to verbal conflict while maintaining a healthy distance from the other boy.

By now a chill was in the air and Halloween was just around the corner, and each House was planning their own party, which distracted each of the boys from each other for a little - Draco because he loved to help plan any elaborate Slytherin events, and Harry because of the significance of the date.

Since learning that it was the date his parents died, he had found it hard to enjoy the 31st of October, but this year Ron and Hermione were determined to take Harry's mind off things. Being only sixteen, the trio had had to ask Fred and George for a couple of bottles of Firewhiskey and Elvish wine, and they'd happily obliged, even throwing in a dangerous-looking little cask of Fred's own "home brew".

"It's probably highly toxic," Ron said cheerfully as the three of them stowed the small keg behind the Common Room curtains. "But it'll do the trick and get you drunk!"

"We can play Spin the Bottle!" Lavender Brown had gushed when they told the other Gryffindor Sixth years of Fred's 'gift'. "It's this really cool Muggle game, Ronny, you'll love it... Have you chosen your costume yet?"

Harry rolled his eyes sympathetically as Ron was dragged off by Lavender to "discuss outfits", and for a second wondered if he'd ever come off anywhere near that needy to Malfoy.

No, he decided, he had more self restraint. Apart from that attempted kiss, Harry knew he'd done a good job of keeping up the pretence of hatred - not that it much of a pretence was necessary; even nowadays he harboured more than a little resentment for the other boy on top of his attraction.

After a little thought about the night, and some shopping with Hermione during which he purchased an appropriate outfit for the party, Harry decided he was looking forward to it. His friends were right, this didn't have to be an entirely sad night, and it would do him good to have a distraction from Malfoy as much as from anything else.

***

The Gryffindor party was well underway, the clock showing a quarter past two in the morning, when Draco Malfoy staggered through the portrait door and shattered any illusion Harry might have had of peace from his tormenting for one night.

He looked ethereally beautiful, which was the first thing Harry noticed. He was dressed in a fitted black suit, the shirt of which was coming carelessly untucked, and the sleeves were rolled once.

He had somehow Transfigured his teeth into oddly alluring pearly fangs, from which two streams of lurid fake blood dripped down his chin. In his left hand he held a delicately cut crystal goblet which was half filled with dark red wine (evidently to complete the vampire look), and there were dramatic dark circles under his eyes.

Those eyes lit up when he spied Harry across the room, and he quickly forced his way over through a crowd of irritated Gryffindors. It didn't take long for Harry to realise that Malfoy was a lot drunker than he was; he reeked of red wine.

"This is a shit party, Potter," Malfoy sneered over the music. "Can't any of you morons Charm a decent sound system? I knew it would be tragic in here."

"Why are you gatecrashing, then?" Harry asked, genuinely confused and offended.

Malfoy shrugged. "Pansy and Blaise went to shag. I fancied a laugh."

His blonde hair gleamed under the flashing lights that Dean and Seamus had strung up earlier in the evening, and Harry couldn't help but think how pretty he looked.

"Couldn't pull anyone for yourself, then?" Harry asked unkindly, but Draco laughed, not even bothering to grace him with a look.

"I've never failed to pull in my life," he replied scornfully. "And for your information, they asked me to join them. I just told them not after last time."

Harry gulped. _Not after last time?_

"That is a weird friendship group," he said with a shake of his head.

"I sleep with all my friends," Malfoy told him airily. "Just because you and your friends are all ugly virgins who can't force yourselves to stoop that low-"

"I'm not a virgin," interrupted Harry hotly, and he knew Malfoy was rolling his eyes bedside him without even looking up.

"Weaslette doesn't count," Malfoy said. Harry had no response.

Bored, Malfoy surveyed the room with a disparaging look, then wandered over to the drinks table. He selected a full bottle of Firewhiskey, cracked it open and swigged insolently right from the neck, daring someone to protest.

Harry thought about it, but decided to stay quiet. Malfoy seemed to be in a particularly odd mood, he didn't know what the other boy would do if he was confronted.

Instead he watched in silence as Draco exhaled and wiped the alcohol's residue from his mouth, not smearing the blood as he did so. Why was Harry so enchanted by the sight? Something about those vivid red streaks was so interesting to him, plus they drew attention to Malfoy's mouth, which was only a bonus.

His fascination with the other boy's appearance quickly turned to annoyance and resentment, though, as he watched him help himself to more bottles on the table with those slender fingers, carelessly discarding any that he found unappealing, not caring when they smashed on the floor.

Others were getting angry with him too by now, and it was clear he was not a welcome addition to the party.

"Oh, I'm not supposed to be here because none of you like me?" Malfoy asked in a mocking voice. "Is that supposed to hurt my feelings? Shut the fuck up. At least ten of you have sucked my dick."

He held his hand high above his head and let the lovely crystal glass fall to the ground, soaking red wine up in a scarlet arc amid shards of crystal as it smashed.

"What the fuck, Malfoy?!" someone yelled, and others joined in. Malfoy was a picture of brazen amusement.

"I can do whatever I like, and you all know it," he grinned maliciously. "Who's going to stop me?"

"Malfoy, why don't you just go back to your own fucking party and leave us alone?" Harry demanded, and the blonde swung tipsily round, a menacing expression on his face.

"I can do whatever I like to you, too, Potter," he said, and his eyes flashed with something Harry didn't quite recognise. "Can't I?"

Harry got the sudden feeling that Malfoy was about to hurt him, and tensed for impact of whatever it was as the other boy approached.

Malfoy took Harry's jaw in one rough hand and pulled it back to force Harry to look up at him, pressing his fingertips into the skin hard enough to make it feel bruised. "I can do whatever I like, and you won't stop me because you're obsessed with me, and you _want_ this," he whispered icily, "Don't you, Potter?"

Harry let out a small gasp as the other boy leaned in and kissed him passionately on the mouth in front of the entire Common Room, who watched on, appalled.

It swiftly became clear to Harry, and to everyone else, that Malfoy was trying to hurt him with this kiss rather than anything else - those fangs were sharp and making his lip lightly bleed - but he was too numbed by alcohol and overwhelmed to care.

After a few intense seconds, Malfoy pulled back and shoved the other boy vehemently away from him once more. He wiped a drop of Harry's blood off his own fake blood trails, and shuddered.

"Nothing," he declared to the room with a strange smile. "I felt nothing."

Harry's eyes filled with drunken tears. "Fuck you, Draco Malfoy!" he shouted, and barged his way out of the room, not caring who saw him sobbing. "You've gone too far this time."


	10. What Ginny Saw

The next morning was a Saturday and Harry still hadn't emerged from Ginny's room by 10am, where he'd run in the panic of the night before.

He knew it sounded awful but no matter how headstrong she acted, Ginny still couldn't say no to him if he asked to stay with her, and Harry was very grateful for this little fact.

"I guess you can sleep here," she'd whispered when he'd appeared by her bedside in tears. "But don't expect anything nice from me. And don't think this means I forgive you."

"Fine," Harry had whispered back as he slid under the covers and breathed in her familiar scent. "Thank you."

Hermione, meanwhile, was much less relaxed when 10 o'clock rolled around and Harry was still nowhere to be found. She'd even managed to drag Ron out of bed by this point, which showed how dire the situation was.

"I mean bloody hell, Ronald, what if he just ran off into the Forbidden Forest or something?" she asked hysterically, pacing around the Gryffindor Common Room.

"He wouldn't do that," Ron rolled his eyes. "He isn't a full idiot, Hermione. Maybe only half."

"He's very impulsive!" Hermione insisted. "And he was drunk, too, and very upset! I mean, did you see his face?!"

"Yeah, he was crushed," Ron agreed reluctantly. "But 'Mione, really. He'll just have slept on the stairs somewhere or something and then gone for a walk to clear his head."

"The stairs?!"

The idea didn't seem to calm Hermione's despair at all, and finally she decided to tackle the real problem.

"I'm going to find Malfoy," she declared, snatching up her wand and striding towards the door, her curls flowing behind her.

"Malfoy?" Ron's eyes widened. "Hermione, are you mad?"

But she wasn't listening and would soon be out of sight, so he decided to leave her to it.

"God, that woman," he muttered slightly proudly. He knew she was about to give Malfoy hell.

***

"Sleeping nicely, are we, Malfoy?!" Hermione yelled as she burst into the Sixth year Slytherin boys' dormitories, sending a ripple of shock and disgust around the boys in the room.

"Ugh, Granger, get _out_ ," Blaise groaned, pulling the duvet angrily up over his head. "It's so early!"

"It's 10am, Zabini, but don't mind me," Hermione snapped, heading straight for the blonde in the corner. "It's Malfoy I'm after."

"Get fucked, Granger," came Draco's half-asleep voice. "I'm hungover."

Oh? Weakness!

Hermione pounced, ripping the duvet down to reveal Malfoy's face and torso and ignoring the disgusted protests.

"Where is Harry?" she demanded, and Malfoy was forced to sit up, blinking blearily.

"Why the fuck should I know?" he asked in irritation. "If he slipped off his little pet-play leash again, surely that's more Weaslette's domain than mine."

Hermione grimaced. "Don't be foul, Malfoy. I'm only asking because this is all your fault. Why can't you ever be fucking normal and not be vile to people?"

Draco squinted at her, unsure how to respond. "How is it my fault...?"

Memories flooded his mind again, and his hand clapped instantly to his mouth, which was still smeared with the vampire blood. "Oh, shit."

"Oh, shit, indeed," Hermione yelled. The volume made him jump. "Surely you've seen what you've been doing to him recently? He isn't _well_ , Malfoy. And if anything happened to him last night as a result of your cruelty, then the consequences are entirely on you."

Draco paused, trying to work out if he felt remorse or embarrassment, but laughed it off - the other boys were staring. "I think you're misunderstanding my intentions, Granger," he said slowly, glancing around for his friends' reactions. "If Potter has got himself into some trouble, then that is a source of _amusement_ for me, not regret."

"You're actually a fucking psycho," Hermione snarled, more angry with the other boy than she'd ever been. "I'm telling you to go and find him, now. Now, Malfoy! Or I'll tell everyone here _exactly_ why Harry ran away from you. Don't want that, do you?"

Draco groaned. He knew the witch would twist the story into making him look like a predator who had actually wanted to kiss Potter rather than his real intentions to hurt him - in which he'd apparently been successful.

He pictured the laughs of the other boys if she told them he'd gone for Potter like that, and how hard it would be to defend himself from the accusations. They were all already looking at him with more than intrigue.

"Fine," he growled, glaring up at the smirking girl. "Although I don't know why you think I'll be able to find the stupid bastard if you can't."

Without bothering to cover himself, he got up out of bed in just his silk pyjama bottoms, stretched, then grabbed his robe, socks and shoes.

Hermione sighed in satisfaction as she watched him storm out of the room. Malfoy always seemed to be able to uncannily appear wherever Harry was, hopefully today would be no exception and that weird sixth sense would kick in.

***

Harry, meanwhile, was in the throes of a particularly vivid dream in Ginny's bed, the likes of which he'd never had before.

He saw ... _Draco towering above him in the Great Hall, blood pouring from his nose and splashing angrily onto the floor, then suddenly they were falling hard down the steps of the Astronomy tower, directly into Draco's bed, and Draco's hand was sliding so slowly down his chest - oh God - and the blood was streaked over his mouth now, and his teeth were so sharp.... why were they so sharp?_

Harry couldn't keep up.

_Draco's hard hands were everywhere now, running over his back and his inner thighs then tangling through Harry's hair to force his face roughly down on the emerald sheets. "Inhale," he ordered, and Harry choked as he did so, the all too familiar scent clouding his mind and filling his veins like morphine._

_He looked behind him directly into Malfoy's icy silver eyes which stared back at him with hard resentment._

It was just as the dream vision of Draco opened his mouth and spat down on Harry's face that Harry realised he was waking up in real life, and coming hard on his chest and stomach as he did so.

"Harry, what the fuck?!!!" Ginny shrieked, and he screamed back in shock, his head whipping up to see her standing over him. He was instantly awake, and just as horrified as she was as he finished.

 _She must have just returned from the run she took every morning,_ he realised _. Bad fucking timing._

"I'm sorry, ok?! I couldn't help it! That was hands-free!" he protested when he was done, casting the quickest Cleaning Charm of his life over the bed and himself, and pulling his robe on in a hurry to leave.

"Get out! Ugh, get out!" she shuddered.

"I'm going, I'm fucking going, alright?"

Harry shoved his feet into the previous night's socks and buckled up his belt as he half ran for the door, burning up with embarrassment as he did so. Why did this shit always happen to him?


	11. Twice in Twelve Hours

When Harry returned to his own dorm that morning, the sight of Draco Malfoy lounging on the end of his bed did little to make him feel less stressed.

In fact, seeing the subject of his most intense dream in the flesh made Harry's heart-rate skyrocket and his hands clench in need.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked, attempting to mask his desire with anger as always.

Malfoy jumped hastily off the bed like he'd been caught doing something awful, and glowered down at Harry. Thank God there was no one else in the room.

"Granger blackmailed me," he said. "I suspect she wants me to apologise, which of course I won't. The only thing I'm sorry about is that I had to touch you last night to prove my point."

Instantly, Harry was livid. "Oh, you were meant to finally apologise, were you?" he snapped nastily. "Let me see, would that be for-"

He began to count on his fingers -

"- All the times you've publicly humiliated me, or the times you've physically pushed me around - or how about last night, when you assaulted me and then humiliated me like it was my fault? Or how about when you..."

He swallowed. "How about when you spat on me?"

Malfoy grinned, clearly enjoying the list of his misdemeanours. "For crying out loud, Potter. Why do you care so much? Everyone else is getting over it. Move on."

"Oh, they're getting over it, are they?" Harry asked. His eyes filled with angry tears. "Well, that's good. Let me just tell my heart to stop racing then, and my eyes to stop looking for you in every room I enter. It's not about everyone else for me, Malfoy, or whether it's a hot topic, or even whether it's relevant to you at this point."

He was crying now, and completely mortified to be doing it again in front of Malfoy. _Twice in 12 hours, fucking hell,_ he thought.

But the other boy, for once, didn't seem to be fully mocking him. His expression certainly wasn't sympathetic, but it was less cruel than usual, and this gave Harry the courage to continue.

"This isn't funny, Malfoy, because it's my life, and I don't think you understand the gravity of your existence for me," Harry said with a slight tremor in his tone. "Or how I will spend the rest of my life searching for someone who makes me feel alive like you do. I just hope the next person doesn't torture me the way you do."

Malfoy still hadn't reacted and it was beginning to worry Harry. The boy was impossible to read - was he about to punch Harry, or apologise, or something completely different? Harry had no idea, but he kept talking.

"Do you have any idea how especially hurtful what you did last night was?" he asked. "Do you know the significance of the date, for example?"

"Halloween." Malfoy rolled his eyes; Harry was just pleased to hear him speak, but he shook his head.

"It's also the anniversary of my parents' death. So it's kind of a hard enough day for me without you assaulting me in front of my entire form and then embarrassing me."

"Congratulations," Malfoy forced himself to say in a nasty tone, though his heart wasn't quite in it as it normally would be. "Happy Orphan-Day for yesterday. If I'd known, I'd have bought a gift."

Harry pulled back his hand and slammed it into the other boy's smug face as hard as he could, taking great joy in the yelp of pain Malfoy let out as his knuckles collided with one of his sharp high cheekbones.

"Oh, did that hurt?" Harry seethed as Malfoy backed off, his face screwed up in pain. "Good. You deserved it, you evil bastard. You're the worst person in the world sometimes, you know that?"

But the look on Malfoy's face that accompanied the pain wasn't anger, as Harry had first assumed. Instead, he appeared overcome by hurt and guilt and confusion, which even he wasn't able to mask.

Before Harry could stop him, he'd leant in and pressed his lips firmly, deliberately, against Harry's. They were warm and soft without the fangs of the previous night, and sweet, unlike the salt of the tears on Harry's own lips, and it took every atom in Harry's body to fight the urge to melt into the sensation.

But his mind won over his body in the end, and he resisted the other boy.

"You have to stop doing this," he swore, shaking his head as he dragged a frustrated hand across his lips. "Is this just how you deal with complicated feelings? You just kiss people?"

Malfoy shrugged, feigning nonchalance again although inside he was panicking. "I don't know," he replied truthfully.

"Ok, well, you have got to leave me alone," Harry insisted.

Don't leave me alone, the voice in his head begged.

"This is twice you've kissed me now and it always hurts," he persisted.

"I think you're overthinking this, Potter," Malfoy's scornful tone was back. "It was a joke again, alright? I was just fucking with you."

"No, Malfoy, I know what it is," Harry snapped. "It's your fucking ego every time, and I don't want to fuel it any longer. I refuse to cry over you again."

"Fine, don't cry over me then," Malfoy smirked. "That was always your decision, not mine. See if I care."

Harry wondered if his heartbreak was audible.


	12. Blue Bruise Baby

the bruise began to develop under Malfoy's eye, fading dark blue against his pale skin, he lied to everyone and said that he tripped, and Harry was oddly grateful for this.

He knew it sounded an unlikely story - Malfoy walked like a model and would sooner starve than trip - and it was probably just to protect his own dignity as ever, but either way Harry appreciated the lie.

He'd been feeling calmer since the latest confrontation, and hadn't seen Malfoy half as much as he normally did over the past few days, which was a relief. Maybe he'd finally listened and agreed to stop tormenting him. Or maybe he was just cooking up something worse.

In reality, Draco was distant because of an emotion that was previously entirely foreign to him - an inkling of remorse. And it wasn't remorse in the sense that he wished he hadn't done it because he'd been punched, but actual genuine guilt for his actions and the things he'd said. And he hated it.

Pansy and Blaise, however, were endlessly amused when he confided the story to them one day in the Common Room, incessantly desperate for details.

"He tried to kiss me again, the pervert," lied Draco in an airy tone, "And when I pushed him away he shoved me back, and I guess that's how I tripped. I don't really remember it."

His left hand slipped subconsciously up to press against the mark left on his cheekbone, the only sign of his dishonesty. The mark would fit Potter's knuckles precisely.

"This is completely fascinating," Pansy giggled, leaning in as he spoke. "I mean, I just can't believe it worked so beautifully."

"Can't believe what worked?" Draco asked absent-mindedly. His fingers carried on tracing over his bruise.

"Oh, yeah! He never got the hint, Pansy, remember?" Blaise laughed pointedly, and with that he had Draco's attention.

"What hint?" he demanded. "I always get hints."

Pansy and Blaise shook their heads with identically infuriating smiles.

"Sorry, Malfoy, darling," Blaise said mock-sympathetically. "If you didn't listen the first fifteen times, we aren't telling you now."

There was probably no quicker way to wind Draco up than this, other than literally to be Harry Potter.

"Nah, you've got to tell me," he glared at his friends, getting to his feet and spinning his wand through his fingers. "Besides, think I don't know Legilimency? Hope you're an Occlumens, Blaise. We'll soon find out one way or another."

But before Draco could enter the other boy's mind he was already blocked out, and he growled in frustration.

His friends laughed again, riling him up further.

"For goodness' sake, Draco, what did you expect? We're all queer Purebloods," Pansy rolled her eyes. "Surely you can't think it's just you who's ever tried to hide your thoughts from your parents?"

"I realise that now," Draco glowered down at her. "And it's extremely annoying. I liked being the most traumatised member of the group but now I'm questioning it, because Blaise was _fast_ just now."

"Try it again and I'll be _fast_ to Hex you into next week," Blaise warned him, and Draco knew he meant it.

"This is so fucking ridiculous." He began to rake his hands through his hair in frustration, not stopping till it was completely wild. "You can't keep secrets from me."

"Oh, but we can," Pansy smiled. "You'll find out soon enough, though. And it'll be glorious."

Draco clenched his jaw so the vein stuck out by his throbbing temple. "I'm going to go and take this out on Potter," he announced.

"You do that, babe."

***

Harry, by the time Malfoy found him, was even less in the mood than usual to act as a venting board for the other boy's problems, having just had an argument with Neville Longbottom, of all people.

"I just expected better of you, Harry," Neville had told him that morning in Charms when the topic of Malfoy came up.

"Expected better of me how?" Harry had demanded, though he already knew where this was going.

Neville blushed, but raised his chin bravely to meet Harry's irritable green eyes. "Well, better than to fancy Malfoy. I know he's attractive, but I thought you were smart enough to see past that."

"I can't exactly help it, Neville," Harry snapped. "I'm not having an amazing time of it, either - if you hadn't noticed, he bullies me senseless every day and this is the best ammunition of his life."

Neville worried away at his lip. "Fine, forget I said anything," he said after an awkward while, and Harry shot him an unkind glare.

"Don't worry, I will."

He knew Neville didn't mean any harm, but nevertheless Harry was getting really sick of the judgement from the other Gryffindors which he'd been subjected to since the rumour about him and Malfoy had spread. Abuse and mocking from Slytherins was fine, he'd expected that. But Harry had even experienced cold shoulders from Hufflepuffs over this incident as well as from people he considered his friends, and that really stung.

And it didn't help that Malfoy was so incessantly malicious about the whole thing.

 _Speak of the Devil,_ he thought as the blonde boy swung round the corner into view, smirking as always.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Harry asked, steeling himself for an insult.

"I just wondered why you looked so upset, that was all," Malfoy replied innocently. "Were you thinking about how you aren't on the Quidditch team any more, which is hilarious, or was it about how you're going to die alone because no one will ever fancy you back, which is funnier?"

"Believe it or not, neither of those things. It wasn't even about you," Harry lied coldly. "Not everything is."

"Shut up, Potter," the other boy sneered, but for once Harry was unfazed.

"What are you going to do, Malfoy?" he asked, confrontation heavy in his tone. "Kiss me again?"

Harry watched with self-righteous amusement as the boy began to turn red with indignation - he knew he couldn't deny the implications.

"Are you going to kiss me, Malfoy?" he pressed again. It was glorious to be in control, to watch Malfoy fidget uncomfortably for a change. "You going to put your tongue in my mouth again?"

"Potter, you know exactly why I did that-"

"I don't care," Harry beamed. "I still loved every second of it. How does that make you feel? I thought about it later, too-"

"Shut up, shut up!" Malfoy seemed almost panicked. He glanced around; people were milling to and from classes and could easily hear the conversation. The pair of them were certainly drawing at least a couple of glances already, which was mortifying.

"Had enough?" Harry simpered sarcastically. "This a bit much for you?"

"You're going to regret this, Potter," Malfoy glared. He wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs and glanced furtively around again. Great, more people were watching now.

"How are you going to make sure of that?" Harry asked, sliding his tongue slowly across his teeth and making sure Malfoy saw. He didn't know where this sudden confidence had come from, but it was gradually becoming ecstatic.

"You going to reject me again, like you do every time I so much as breathe near you?" Harry shrugged. "I'm desensitised."

"I can still hurt you," Malfoy vowed, but his words didn't hit as hard as usual, and Harry allowed himself a small laugh.

"I really don't think you can," he replied smugly. "I've decided to enjoy you in all your evil glory. Remember how you got that pretty bruise, baby?"


	13. The Failed Antidote

Harry's newfound confidence was nothing short of life-changing.

He felt practically invincible walking around and knowing Malfoy couldn't hurt him any more because he had decided to enjoy it, and nothing gave him more pleasure than the torturous discomfort on the Slytherin's face whenever he was around.

He could practically see Malfoy's internal debate - _Do I try to hurt him and give him the opportunity to embarrass me by not being hurt, or do I ignore him and risk looking weak anyway_? There was no good option for him, and they both knew it.

Harry had even managed to get his place back on the Gryffindor Quidditch team by early November after three weeks off, much to Ginny's anger and disappointment.

"Reckon you can keep your emotions under control and ignore the Serpents in the crowd?" Oliver had asked, and Harry nodded confidently.

They'd won the following match, and the next, and were shaping up to win the last match before Christmas, too.

All of this was a source of great distress for Draco, however. How was he meant to hurt Potter when all he did in return was laugh in his face and ask if he wanted a _kiss_ again? It was mortifying.

He'd been front row of Potter's first game back on the Gryffindor team, not armed with a banner as he thought they were pretty tragic, but prepared to shout some demeaning things whenever the Seeker flew past him. But it had been no use! Potter had entirely ignored him, except for two occasions when he'd bit his lip and winked in Draco's direction.

Hateful, useless boy. What good was bullying when the victim decided he liked it?

The most terrifying thing of all was that Draco was beginning to almost like it too, in an angry, hungry sort of way.

He'd always loved the thrill of a good fight or a challenge, and Potter's blatant, unashamed enjoyment of every confrontation Draco offered was beginning to be exciting to him too, though he wouldn't admit it to himself. He'd teach Potter to laugh at him, to take pleasure in the conflict between them. He'd find a way to hurt him some time soon.

But Harry genuinely didn't care. Whatever Malfoy offered him in terms of spite, he laughed at, and promised to think about "later on in bed", and that never failed to make the other boy red with anger.

And he had been thinking about it. Later on in bed, that is. Harry had decided to allow himself to fully experience his attraction to Draco Malfoy, and that meant enjoying it in every way possible.

So he stored up every interaction in his mind, every shove, every arrogant comment, every vicious insult, and at night with the drapes of his bed drawn, he would replay them again in all their agonising glory.

Draco bleeding, spitting, swearing, lashing out at him, slamming him against the wall, kissing him hard to embarrass him, laughing about it later.

The montage of images was head-spinningly excruciating and untouchably beautiful at the same time.

Harry's favourite memory above all others was always the Halloween kiss, when those fangs left tender red grooves in Harry's lips for hours and the whiskey lay hot on Draco's tongue as he'd swiped it painfully over the cuts he was inflicting, a conscious effort to force the stinging alcohol into the lesions.

The kiss the following morning was one Harry dwelt on less, however. It had been a confusing hot rush as always, but the emotions on Draco's face at the time had almost embarrassed Harry in their sheer intimacy and vulnerability, like it was something extremely private that Harry had walked in on by mistake. He felt like it was Draco's deranged attempt at an apology, which was so sad it was almost funny.

Harry had taken to thinking about his parents a lot too in the past few weeks. He wondered if they'd have been the type to support him and give him good advice.

"I fancy Draco Malfoy, Mum," he whispered to the sky one night as he lay awake in bed, "But he hates me more than anyone else in the world."

 _All this 'boy stuff' is more Sirius' domain,_ laughed the James in Harry's mind, though he wasn't sure what made him think that. _But if you want me to Hex the bastard, Harry, I'll give it a go._

"No, I'm OK, Dad," he whispered back to the imaginary voice, a small smile spreading across his face. "I can handle it for myself."

Harry sighed, and turned over again to try and sleep, but quickly realised it was no use. His mind was racing, his stomach was full and there was a heightening sensation just beneath it as his mind drifted back to the events of the day.

He and Malfoy had been sat right across the room from one another in Potions. It was the final lesson of the day, yet the Slytherin had been full of energy and was completely unperturbed by the distance; apparently still unable to leave Harry alone.

"Nice Potion, Potter," he'd said sarcastically as he sauntered past Harry's work station. "Looks like you threw it up yourself."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Harry replied absent-mindedly as he stirred the mixture in his cauldron. It was a nonsensical phrase that he'd picked up from George Weasley and now used as a reflex response for anything Malfoy said, regardless of the implications.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Malfoy spluttered. It never failed to annoy and confuse him when Harry said that - because what was the right response? It was an impossible conundrum.

And of course, Harry only laughed.

They'd been making the antidote to Veritaserum that lesson and, granted, Harry's wasn't looking good. Hermione had agreed to work with Ron that lesson so that left Harry stuck with Neville, and neither of them really had any idea what they were doing.

It didn't help that Malfoy was continuously attempting to confuse them.

"Stir anti-clockwise, Longbottom," he piped up over the tables, a spiteful smirk on his face. "And use less of that crushed unicorn horn if you know what's good for you."

Or perhaps, "It should be bubbling up now, Potter! You're going to want it hotter than that!"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Harry replied, instead turning the heat rapidly down to watch the liquid cool.

As it turned out, Malfoy's suggestions were in fact the correct instructions for the potion, but he knew his reputation meant the two Gryffindors wouldn't trust him, and instead he watched on in delight while they effectively sabotaged their own potion.

It was a great surprise to exactly nobody, therefore, when the time came to test the potions, and Harry and Neville's concoction looked nothing like anybody else's. Instead of being clear, still, and odourless, theirs was cloudy, extremely effervescent, and with a slight smell of carbon about it.

"You take it, Harry," Neville said in a shaky voice, pushing the Veritaserum bottle towards his friend. "I think we're both aware that our antidote won't work, so at least everyone already knows all your secrets."

"Wow, thanks for the reminder, Neville," Harry said sarcastically, but he took five drops of the solution without being asked again, and prepared himself to talk about Malfoy for the foreseeable future.

On the Slytherin side of the classroom, Pansy and Blaise were annoying Draco again.

"I don't understand why you both decided to take that antidote so quickly after the Veritaserum," he grumbled as he wiped down his work surface with a flick of his wand. "You hadn't even answered my question before you reversed the truthful effects!"

Pansy and Blaise shared a pointed look, which didn't go unseen by the angry blonde.

"That's because you were asking us top secret information, Draco," Pansy smirked. "Which we aren't going to tell you."

"But it's _about me_!" Draco almost yelled. "I _know_ it's about me! I just want to know whatever you were laughing about the other day, what 'hint' I didn't get which I'm now paying the price for!"

"We'll tell you eventually," Blaise grinned. "Just let us enjoy our joke for now."

Luckily for Draco, he noticed in that minute that Potter was causing a scene again, and was swiftly diverted from his anger into fascination again.

 _Is the boy literally allergic to dignity?_ Draco wondered. It seemed that way; he never failed to embarrass himself perfectly whenever the opportunity arose.

"I don't know if I want to punch Draco Malfoy in the face more or if I want him to punch me," Potter was declaring as Longbottom tried frantically to pass him the loudly fizzing and inefficient antidote.

"I want him to ram his tongue down my _fucking_ throat again," he carried on after taking a useless swig from the bottle, and the class erupted into gasps and hysterical laughter.

Like Draco, Weasley was among those who found the situation hilarious, while Granger watched on in paralysed horror.

"Fifteen points from Gryffindor for obscene language, Potter," Snape drawled, and the Gryffindor at his right inhaled sharply.

"Professor, he can't help it!" she protested. "He's under the influence of Veritaserum, he has no control over what he says!"

"And yet you _do_ have control, and you _still_ choose to subject us to your thoughts, Miss Granger," Snape mused cruelly. "Fifteen further points from Gryffindor."

The girl's cheeks flamed red with anger, but she didn't stop there. "May I please at least give him some of my antidote, sir?" she asked bravely.

"Let this be a sort of punishment for Mr. Potter," Snape replied in a cold tone. "And we shall hope that next time, he will thus find motivation to make the potion correctly."

And punishment indeed it was, as two hours later at dinner Harry was still spilling his every thought to anyone who cared to listen.

Malfoy and his friends had forced their way through the crowd for "front-row seats" as the blonde put it, and Harry was not disappointing them.

"I'd love you to spit on me again, but this time in my mouth," he told Malfoy, his head spinning as he gazed up at the other boy.

"And I didn't have anything better to do the other night so I was thinking about that and I watched your name move around on the Marauders Map while I was wank-"

"Oohhhkay, that's enough from you!" Ron interrupted over a torrent of hysterical laughter from every student within earshot.

He and Hermione stood up and pulled Harry hurriedly along behind them, ushering him out of the Hall before he could somehow find something worse to say.

"What did the git watch my name on?!" Draco demanded, striding quickly to keep up with the group.

"Er, the Map?" Hermione asked weakly, for once quite panicked as to what she should say. "It's a sort of code name we use for an, er, book we have... nothing for you to worry about."

"Great, now Mudbloods are keeping secrets from me too," Draco spat, not caring if she heard him or not. "First my friends, now this. It's pathetic."


	14. Dirty Mind

Now it was Draco's turn to be tormented by his own mind.

Visions of Potter's brazen face as he openly degraded himself in front of the entire student body filtered through Draco's eyelids every time he closed them, and he heard a bold voice spill out over his memories.

"I want you to spit in my mouth next time, Malfoy.... God, I want him to ram his tongue down my fucking throat-"

 _Christ_.

And then the fact that he'd swanned down to breakfast the next morning as though nothing had happened - Draco had to admit he sort of admired Potter for that audacity. What he wouldn't admit, however, was that he also found it weirdly hot.

Draco still hated the other boy, that was fortunately very clear to him. But this new reversal of roles had him feeling thrown, almost weak, which was decidedly not a sensation Draco Malfoy was accustomed to.

He had assumed, for example, when Potter strolled over to lean on the Slytherin table, that he was coming to apologise or make some excuse for his behaviour the previous evening, defend himself somehow - but no.

"I just wanted to assure you, Malfoy - about last night-" Potter began, helping himself to a leisurely swig of the other boy's glass of juice and ignoring all protests. "I meant every last word I said and I don't regret a single one."

Malfoy's body tingled with a hot rush of hatred as Harry's gaze slipped up and down him, but he didn't let the smirk fall from his face. "You should, you really embarrassed yourself," he said, making sure to keep his tone cold.

"No, I don't think I did," Harry grinned carelessly. He placed the now-empty glass back down by Draco, who recoiled as if he'd been slapped. "I was just saying what everyone else wanted to hear, anyway. I'm sure no one was shocked. And I certainly didn't see you complaining, by the way. Front-row seats, wasn't it?"

Draco shifted in his seat and he helped himself to a green apple from the dish in the centre of the table, anything to occupy his hands. He was at a total loss of what to do; completely out of his depth.

How could he and Potter both play the dominant role in their rivalry? It just wouldn't work. Potter needed to learn to stick to his own fucking role as the victim and stop getting above himself.

Why was it, Draco wondered, that he found it so easy to shut off all emotions when he was hurting Potter, but now that the boy was standing up for himself, all Draco could feel in response was frustration and confusion? He bit into the apple harder than necessary, careful not to let Potter see what had suddenly ignited inside him.

"You loved it, didn't you?" Harry asked, as though he genuinely wanted to know the answer. "You had a great time watching me go on about you?"

This is a trick, Draco's rational Slytherin mind told him, so he stayed silent, forcing himself simply to stare up at the other boy with his usual demeanour artificial amusement and contempt.

"Cat got your tongue, Malfoy?" Potter pressed. "You gone all shy?"

"You care a lot about my tongue, don't you?"

"Of course," Potter grinned. "I think I told you about that yesterday."

Draco glowered. He did remember it and found he didn't appreciate the reminder.

"Disgusting," he said, but the words ' _I want Draco Malfoy to ram his tongue down my fucking throat_ ' were echoing loudly around his ears again, practically scorching him with their volume and potency.

He couldn't believe Potter had said that in front of Snape, of all people, and didn't seem to give a single fuck about it now.

"You've got a dirty fucking mind, Potter," he managed with a shake of his head.

"And you're all over it," the dark-haired boy shot back.

With that, he turned and all but strutted out of the Hall. Draco couldn't keep his darkened eyes off of him, trying to burn holes in the back of his cloak with the heat of his hateful gaze.

"You guys go on without me," he said, turning to Pansy and Blaise, who could not conceal their mirth. "I'm going to, um... have some coffee."

He didn't trust himself to get up without tearing after Potter and punching his smug fucking face in, or banging his own head against the wall in frustration.

"Didn't you already have two cups, Draco?" Pansy's eyes danced with wicked merriment. "Wouldn't want you getting jittery, now."

"That's none of your business, Parkinson."

Either way, there was no way he was standing up for the next few minutes at least, so eventually his friends gave up and left him sat almost alone in the Hall.

Their laughter echoed off the walls on their way out, and Draco slammed his head on the table with a barely repressed groan. He kept his forehead pressed to the cool wooden surface as he waited for his blood pressure to drop to a normal level once more, and for the anger to seep out of his body like the tide.

Conflict consumed him. Wasn't this what he wanted - Potter publicly worshipping him, making him feel even more desired than usual?

He supposed it was, but something was missing. It felt like he'd had his power stripped from him, like he was vulnerable in some way he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"I didn't ask for this," he muttered to himself, finally pulling his head up and running a hand through his hair. "I didn't bloody want it."

But the boundaries between what Draco wanted and what he didn't were becoming increasingly harder to tell apart.


	15. Alone

Later that day, Draco's world began to fall apart.

It started slowly, with a mere distraction in Potions. Potter was being obnoxious as usual and taking all the attention in class, and before Draco knew it, his Potions book was lit up like a bonfire over the cauldron.

He flapped it and blew frantically to put the flames out, but it was clear the damage was done.

"Don't worry, Malfoy, I'm sure Daddy will buy you a new one," Potter smirked over the table, and Draco glared back. It wasn't the book he was particularly bothered about; like Potter said, it was more than replaceable. But the uncharacteristic lapse in his concentration that had lead to the accident in the first place concerned him. What was happening to him these days?

"Pansy, let me use your textbook," Draco demanded, but was surprised by the speed with which his friend's textbook was whipped away from his grasp.

"No, I'm using it," she told him petulantly, but there was an odd look of worry in her eyes which piqued Draco's interest greatly, so without any further thought he ripped it out of her hands and flicked roughly though the pages to that day's topic.

Before he could get there, however, Draco's fingers skimmed over the page titled 'Amortentia', and a sheet of parchment in Pansy's writing drifted onto his lap.

"What's this?" he asked curiously, and Pansy lunged across the desk in a panicked flurry, which was enough to rapidly assure him that it was important, and he used his lofty height to wield it well out of the girl's reach.

"It's just a joke - Draco, give it back, it's private!" she hissed, trying to snatch the page back from him without attracting Snape's attention, but Draco only laughed and held it higher.

"Draco, seriously, you want to give that back," Blaise chipped in, the same expression of weird concern written over his face.

"No, I think I am going to read it, thanks, since you're both so concerned," Draco insisted with an unkind smile, and with that, he began scanning the paper until the smile fell well and truly to the floor.

"How To Make A Draco?" he read aloud incredulously, and watched embarrassment and dismay replace the worry on his friend's faces. "Dior Sauvage cologne, green apple, cherrywood broom polish, fresh linen, spearmint, Draco's hair gel... what's this? And vanilla?"

"It was just a joke, Draco," Blaise managed weakly, but he didn't offer any further explanation. It was pretty self-explanatory.

"What the fuck is this?!" Draco snapped in outrage, not caring when Snape's beady glare drifted over towards the table. The professor wasn't above punishing even his favourite student, but Draco was too wound up to even notice him.

He glanced over to Potter's work station, where he was apparently engaged in trying to blow up his cauldron as usual with Longbottom. Little terrorist.

Draco wondered if maybe he should go immediately over and show Potter the page, reveal the truth, but something stopped him. He couldn't decide what it was - maybe embarrassment, or an unusual lack of desire to make a scene in class - but whatever it was, it was powerful, so for once he stayed away.

"Draco, we'll discuss this later..." Blaise shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Draco laughed a cold, short laugh with no humour in it. "Oh yeah, we will."

Pansy looked equally uncomfortable as he turned back to her.

"Pans? Anything to tell me?" he asked in a lowered voice, and she shook her head. "Coward."

Draco scanned the page again with flickering grey eyes, unable to take in what was written there.

"Add rosewater and pearl dust so it looks like real Amortentia..." he read under his breath, his hands shaking with an emotion he couldn't name. "Swap with Potter's own brew while Draco ... while Draco distracts him."

Pansy reached out to touch Draco's arm gently but he flinched away from her.

"I think you've done enough, Parkinson, you fucking traitor," he hissed menacingly. "You let me believe this for so long - how could you do this to me?"

"I don't know why you're so bothered, Draco," Blaise tried quietly. "It's not like you like him."

Draco wheeled round to glare at him full in the face, eyes burning. "I don't, Blaise, you're right," he replied nastily. "But that's none of your business anyway. The point is that the two of you were set on trying to embarrass me in this weird little trick of yours, and I hate you for that."

Pansy's eyes brimmed with guilty tears. "Draco, it was just a joke that got out of hand," she whispered. "We didn't know Potter would react as much as he did!"

Draco shook his head, then fixed his gaze on his desk and didn't look up.

"Don't talk to me for the rest of the lesson," he replied in a tone so cold and so similar to his Father's voice that the others didn't object.

"In fact - don't talk to me for the rest of the year. You're scum, both of you, and I can't believe I ever trusted you."

***

That night in bed, Draco attempted to work out why he was so devastated by the revelation from Potions class.

Clearly the other boy wasn't in on the prank; he was far too easy to read for that. No, Potter's desire was genuine. Draco was sure of it. _He must just be very persuadable_ , he thought to himself with resentment.

He supposed what was hurting him was really the betrayal of his friends. They'd always played small tricks on each other when they were younger, but Draco had assumed that they'd all grown out of it by now, and knew better than to put his Malfoy honour at risk like this. Didn't they know what such a scandal could do to Draco if his father heard of it? It was reckless, thoughtless behaviour and it didn't bear thinking about.

Bloody Pansy and Blaise. He wouldn't forgive them in a hurry. Draco was very good at a lot of things, but it had to be said that holding grudges was one of his specialities, a trait he prided himself on more than he probably should.

He decided eventually that he'd have to tell Potter, though. It wouldn't be as fun to hear about his crush any more anyway, knowing he'd simply been conditioned into it and that it wasn't genuine. What a weird thing to have to tell someone.

"I'm sorry, Potter, but you don't fancy me," Draco practised saying, and it sounded so ridiculous that he'd have laughed if it wasn't for how angry he still was.

He'd miss Pansy and Blaise's company but to an extent Draco was used to being alone, so he knew he'd cope.

He pictured Potter's trusting green eyes staring up at him, and sighed. He wasn't sure if he felt bad about it, but either way this wasn't something Draco wanted to have to tell the other boy. It was so bloody awkward.

Part of him was aware that it was a good opportunity to get his own back on Potter for all his recent tormenting, though, and when had Draco ever passed up a chance to hurt the other boy before, if one arose?

Perhaps it would be cathartic. They'd both feel better, could go back to their previous enmity where both knew where they stood - and where they stood, was that they unequivocally despised each other.

"It was all a trick, OK, Potter? So you can leave me alone now," he whispered. That didn't sound much better than before.

_Leave me alone._


	16. The Revelation

Draco still wasn't looking forward to breaking the news to Potter when morning came around, but decided to get it over with first thing, waiting early outside the Great Hall in the hopes of grabbing the other boy on his way in.

Sure enough, no sooner after 8am rolled around, Potter appeared with his pet Mudblood and the Carrot Top, and Draco wasted no time in hauling him aside.

"I have to talk to you," he hissed, dragging the confused boy round the corner before he could even manage a complaint or an innuendo.

"Ow, Malfoy, you're hurting me," Potter whined, and Draco laughed hollowly.

"I'm going to hurt you in a minute when you've heard what I've got to say," he assured him, and then felt the tiniest jolt of something like genuine amusement, because he knew it was true. He was going to hurt Potter again.

"How?" Potter asked suspiciously, brushing Draco's grip off his robes and taking a cautious step away to lean heavily on the wall across from him.

Draco sighed. _How to begin?_

"You know that Potions class where we brewed Amortentia?" he asked.

Potter nodded with a slight wince. "Of course I do."

"Yeah, big day for you. You smelled me, right?"

Another nod. "Obviously, yeah."

"So, what I'm trying to say is - what if that was somehow wrong?"

Potter frowned. "Wrong how? I know what I smelt, and Amortentia doesn't 'get it wrong', Malfoy."

"Yeah, but... what if your vial wasn't actual Amortentia after all? What if it was..." he paused to fully gauge the other boy's reaction. "What if it was literally my cologne?"

Potter didn't disappoint. His mouth fell open, and anger flashed quickly through his eyes as he realised what Draco was saying. "You did fucking _what_ , you ferret??" he exploded, and for a second Draco was almost afraid.

"Not me!" he leapt in hurriedly, throwing his hands up as if to wield off an attack. "Believe me, Potter, I'm sickened enough by the idea of you liking me to know for sure that I'd never fake that. Pansy and Blaise think they're funny, though."

Potter's own hands were busy raking through his dark hair, causing it to stand up in patches in a rather post-coital manner. "And you knew about this, did you?!" he seethed.

"I only found out by accident yesterday!" Draco protested. "I'm angry about it too, believe me."

"Why should I believe you? I don't even know what happened!"

Draco sighed, and reached reluctantly into his pocket. "Look, it's probably easier to show you than tell you."

Draco's hands only hesitated for a second as he passed the crumpled sheet of parchment to the other boy, whose face was screwed up with the same confusion Draco himself had felt when he first read it.

"What sort of weird joke is this?" Potter asked once he'd read it, looking like he'd like to rip the parchment up.

"It's not a joke," Draco shrugged. "It's your 'get out of jail free' card. It was all pretend, alright? You don't actually like me."

Potter faltered. "I think I do," he muttered, though his mind was clearly reeling.

"I actually don't care," Draco shook his head. "I really don't. You can think what you like, but we aren't going to carry on like this. As far as I'm concerned, I hate you, and you hate me. And that's the way I like it."

He knew he was being cruel, and relished it. Cruelty always made him feel better about his own hard emotions; it was sometimes the only thing he knew.

"Fine," Potter glared, tucking the parchment into his own pocket.

Draco wondered for a second if he should ask for it back, but decided he didn't care.

"You're easier to hate than to like, anyway," Potter shrugged, "And I suppose I never stopped doing that even through all of this."

"So you can leave me alone now?"

"Is that what you want?"

Draco stared back at him like he was mad. "Of course that's what I want, you moron! You think I've enjoyed you humping my leg like a horny puppy for the past few weeks?"

"I've barely touched you and you know it," Harry said disdainfully. "Certainly less than you've touched me."

"Isn't it hilarious how it was all for nothing, though?" Draco laughed. "You embarrassed yourself over me for literally _nothing_."

Harry hated him for that more than anything else.

***

He thought Ron and Hermione might go through the literal roof that evening when he told them what had happened, displaying the creased-up parchment as evidence.

"Those evil serpents!" Ron exploded, gripping the page so hard it tore a little under his fingers.

"It's manipulative and cruel to play with someone's feelings like that!" Hermione agreed hotly, banging the table for emphasis. "We should go to Snape about it - he may be on their side normally, but messing around in Potions won't be something he'd take lightly!"

"Or we could just beat the shit out of them?" Ron suggested with a crack of his knuckles. "Reckon I could take Zabini. What about you, 'Mione? Think you could handle Parkinson?"

Harry chuckled, his anger dissipating in a rush of affection. "This is very sweet, Ron, but I think you're forgetting Blaise is at least an inch taller than you."

"And I think you're forgetting I've got five older brothers, two of which are Fred and George bloody Weasley," Ron replied airily. "I know how to fight, Harry. I broke George's wrist when I was about ten."

"So does this mean Harry fights Malfoy, then?" Hermione asked with a wry grin. "Just so he doesn't feel left out."

"It isn't really Malfoy's fault," Harry said quietly, inspecting his fingers.

Hermione looked at him with pity. "Why are you defending him, Harry?" she asked. "Even if he wasn't directly involved, he was still pretty unpleasant with the aftermath."

Harry shrugged. He knew there was nothing he could say to explain himself; they all knew why he was defending the other boy.

He thought about what would happen next. Would he and Malfoy really be able to act like uncomplicated enemies again after all this weirdness?

 _I can show this to Ginny,_ Harry realised, She might take me back. He wondered how he felt about that. It didn't take much wondering. Everyone knew his heart was somewhere else now, regardless of the reasons why.

It was lying in Draco Malfoy's cold hands, where he kept painfully squeezing it whenever the urge arose. And it arose all the fucking time.


	17. Jupiter's Moons

Harry's mind was in a whirl. He was sick to the point of losing sleep over the whole disgusting complicated situation, terrified by his own emotions and the lack of trust he suddenly found in them.

He felt almost betrayed by his own body, by the sickening adrenaline that still fired through his veins whenever Malfoy was anywhere near him and made him hate himself to the core.

 _It's fake, you moron, get over it,_ he chastised himself mentally, though that knowledge strangely didn't help.

If anything, his attraction to the other boy was growing stronger by the day - Malfoy wasn't exactly growing less attractive, or attempting to avoid Harry like he'd claimed he wanted so badly. In fact, he was just as malicious and attention-seeking around Harry as he ever was, though the two of them danced carefully around recent events.

But under the surface, Draco was also still struggling to come to terms with the revelation. He hadn't realised how dependent his ego truly was on Potter's interest in him until he thought that it was taken away, and found himself desperate for validation where he could get it.

It all came to a head one Monday afternoon in Astronomy class.

Harry had been kept behind after Herbology and was therefore late to the class, flustered and slightly rain-soaked from the run over. Ron and Hermione weren't in that class, and Harry's lateness meant he was forced to take the nearest available seat when he finally arrived at the top of the tower.

This happened to be the seat on the end of the table next to Draco Malfoy, who made no effort to accommodate Harry when he sat down, meaning he was rather cramped in an effort not to make contact.

As Professor Sinistral droned on about Jupiter's moons, Harry busied himself with getting out his textbook and parchment, trying not to drip rain on the paper or indeed on the boy sitting next to him.

"Ew, it reeks of wet dog in here," Malfoy announced loudly with a wrinkle of his perfect roman nose, causing some giggles from the Slytherin girls in the room.

"Oh, that's interesting! I sprayed some Amortentia before I came up," shot back Harry sarcastically, generating some laughter of his own. "Wouldn't have had you down as the bestial type though, Malfoy. Interesting."

Malfoy didn't respond to that, which Harry thought was odd at first, before he realised that the actual punishment for his disrespect was far, far worse than an insult.

He became quickly aware of the slender hand under the table which pushed aside the length of robe material covering Harry's left thigh, revealing the dark fabric of his trousers in one firm, deliberate movement.

The hand rested a couple of inches above the knee for a second, not at all softly, and Harry's senses went wild.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he choked, sliding his own hand under the table to grip Malfoy's wrist; it was an attempt to tear the pressure away, but Malfoy was stronger than Harry and his hand only crept higher the more he resisted.

Then he began to push down on Harry's leg so hard that Harry could feel the cool silver of his rings pressing through to the heat of his skin, and it made him shiver.

"Malfoy, please-"

But Malfoy didn't even falter, his grey eyes fixed firmly on his work, answering the professor's questions when asked and writing lines of perfect script in his free hand, while the other dug hard grooves into Harry's thigh beneath the table.

There was no indication of what was going on other than a slight flicker in his irises, but even then only if you knew what you were looking for.

Harry thought about protesting properly but couldn't imagine how terribly Malfoy would react, and besides, it was hot, so instead he let go of the sharp wrist and shifted his hips as hard as he could away from the boy without drawing anyone else's attention. But the hand was unyielding, practiced, certain.

His index finger began to trace deft patterns into the inside of Harry's thigh - was he spelling something?

A hot flush rose to Harry's cheeks; he was amazed that there was any blood left in his body to even go there with all of the flow to his crotch. By now he was paralysed by Malfoy's touch, all hope of pushing him away was completely lost, and every fraction of his attention was agonisingly focused on a few specific square inches of his body.

"Which is the nearest to Jupiter of the four Galilean moons, Mr. Potter?" Professor Sinistral asked, making him jump. She was apparently oblivious to the fire threatening to consume Harry as she spoke, as was everyone else in the room.

Malfoy's hand became softer, which was somehow worse and provided more torment than the rough treatment of before, and Harry gasped. How the fuck was he supposed to think about moons at a time like this, when the boy who drove him crazy was running his hand secretly all up his leg?

"Er, Callisto?" Harry guessed after enough time had passed for it to be awkward, his voice higher pitched than usual.

Professor Sinistral sighed. "Callisto is the furthest, Potter. Think closer."

"Closer, eh?" Malfoy whispered, and his hand slid another stretch up Harry's leg. It was all the dark-haired boy could do not to whimper.

"Ganymede?" he croaked, and again the Professor shook her head.

"Closer."

Malfoy's hand obeyed. Harry squirmed. It was between two now: Io and Europa, and he knew full well which it was. He wondered if he should get it wrong on purpose - Malfoy's hand was tantalisingly close to his crotch, and he wanted to see whether the other boy would actually go there.

Curiosity overruled; Harry sighed and allowed himself to be engulfed by the fire in the pit of his stomach. "Europa," he muttered, and Malfoy's fingers slipped victoriously up as high on Harry's thigh as they could possibly get, brushing over his bulge tantalisingly as they did so.

Harry wasn't sure if he wanted to bang his own head on the desk or bang Malfoy on it more, torn between despising the bastard and being totally consumed by him.

"You're such a dick," he hissed.

Malfoy smirked without raising his head. "I know that you knew it was Io, you freak."

They remained that way for the rest of the lesson, Malfoy's heavy-ringed hand pressing malice into Harry's burningly sensitive skin, and then the bell for the end of the class rang and Malfoy finally let go.

"Come on, Potter," he said gleefully, standing up and stretching ostentatiously. "You not coming to Charms?"

"I can't," Harry hissed, loathing radiating off his every cell as he spoke. He glanced around; everyone else was busy packing up to leave and was paying no attention to them, so he felt safe to speak.

"Why not?"

"You know why not, you evil son of a bitch. Why the fuck would you do that to me?!"

Malfoy licked his smirking lips and rested those beautiful hands calmly over his flat stomach. "Because I can. Because I wanted to prove you aren't over me."

"I told you myself that I'm not!" Harry protested. His jaw was so clenched he could barely speak through it, and he resented Malfoy for standing up so early because it forced Harry's head to tilt right back to see him, and drew attention to his own reluctance to stand.

"You're a sadistic shit, Draco Malfoy. What did you even gain from that?"

"I liked watching you get all upset and hot over me," Draco grinned proudly. "But if you're trying to subtly ask if I embarrassed myself and got hard like you did then obviously not because I'm not gross."

"Obviously I'm going to get hard if someone touches me like that, Malfoy, don't flatter yourself," Harry sighed.

When he took off his robes for a shower later that night, there was the imprint of a serpent on the inside of his thigh from Malfoy's ring. Somehow, Harry knew that was deliberate.


	18. Make it Hurt

Harry decided not to go straight to Ron and Hermione about Malfoy's wandering hands in that class - he might have understood the other boy's motives himself, but he knew they wouldn't, and it would be easier to keep it secret.

But that didn't mean he stopped thinking about it, of course. Malfoy's sheer willingness to inflict pain and play with Harry's emotions never failed to amaze him, even now after so much had happened between the two of them.

 _People are fragile things, you have to be careful with their minds and their hearts and their bones,_ he thought _. But Malfoy does the exact opposite. I wonder if he'd kill me if he got a chance._

It was a rather unnerving thought and Harry shrugged it off quickly, but the fact that it had even occurred to him spoke volumes. He supposed there was just no way for him to tell what level of sadism Malfoy would go to for his own malicious pleasure, but he'd be better off putting a stop to it fast before he got seriously hurt.

But suddenly, a realisation began to dawn on Harry, and the constant infliction of pain began to make sense.

The whole thing in Astronomy had been very bizarre behaviour simply for the sake of proving a point, and Harry realised now why Malfoy couldn't leave him alone - it went far further than ego, or point-scoring, or hate, though of course those were factors.

"You're more like me than you'd care to admit, Malfoy," Harry mused as he headed for the bathroom for a hot bath before the evening's Quidditch practice. He'd use the time to mull the situation over before seeing Malfoy again on the pitch, when the Gryffindor fixture would inevitably overrun into Slytherin's time. And then he'd have his chance to confront him.

***

Malfoy understood exactly what Harry meant when he pulled him aside after the Slytherin practice that night, though he pretended not to.

"Look, Malfoy, we can either discuss what I have to say in private in the changing rooms, or we can discuss it loudly here in front of everyone else," Harry snapped, "And if we stay out here, I'm more than happy to lie in order to embarrass you. So it's your decision."

"Changing rooms," Malfoy growled, before following the other boy into the dark.

The Gryffindor changing rooms were empty, their House practice having technically finished twenty minutes earlier, and for this fact both boys were relieved. Too much of their dirty laundry had already been aired for the school to see; they appreciated any privacy.

The bruise from Harry's punch was fading from Malfoy's cheek now but it was still just about there, blue enough to still hurt, and Harry grabbed a rough hold of the other boy's jaw to press his thumb into the mark the second they were alone. Then he forced Malfoy down hard onto one of the benches, while he himself stayed standing, staring down his nose with hostility. It was an excellent way of making sure he had the blonde's full, wide-eyed attention.

Malfoy surprisingly didn't resist at any point, though pain flashed through his eyes as Harry gripped harder. Pain was evident in his mouth too, in the corner where his teeth bit into his lip.

"I've decided I've had enough now of you and your fucking ego, Malfoy," Harry lashed the words out angrily, enjoying the other boy's lack of resistance for once. "You've got this primal need to hurt me all the time and it's getting ridiculous. It's all you, you, you, constantly, isn't it? As if my brain didn't give me enough thoughts about you as it was to begin with. But now I know why you do it."

"It's not my fault you've got this weird fixated crush on me," Malfoy attempted to bat the accusation away through gritted teeth, but Harry only laughed spitefully.

"No, but you love it just the same, don't you?" he asked, leaning over and smacking his other hand flat against the wall just above Malfoy's blonde head, so that he was effectively imprisoned by Harry's body. Harry looked down with a smug and nasty grin.

"And I know why. I think you're obsessed with me, Malfoy, even more than I am with you. I think you genuinely love this shit."

Malfoy tried to interrupt, but Harry was having none of it. He felt powerful above Malfoy, whose face was shadowed by the arch of Harry's body and grimaced under his painful touch.

"I think you were absolutely thriving on the idea that you had all of my attention, as long as you wanted it," Harry continued, "And now that you're less sure of that validation, you're losing your mind. Because you need me to need you."

Draco was furious at the implication but there was no denying that he'd never felt so alive as he did in that moment, tousled and pushed back on the bench, Harry's hand pressing a dull ache into the arch beneath his eye. The contact was delirious.

"And guess what, I do need you," Potter was saying, his green eyes darkening with frustration and the headrush of power. "It's real, Malfoy, forget the Amortentia. You don't have to even fight for it any more. I'm all yours and I know that intoxicates you. You want me more than anyone you've ever had."

"Shut up," Draco hissed, but Harry pressed his fingers harder into those high cheekbones, causing Draco to audibly wince.

"I won't shut up," Harry snapped. "You've been trying to make me shut up for years, and I won't give in on this. But you know I'm right, Malfoy."

"Shut up!"

"You want to fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid-"

"I said, shut the fuck up!" Draco exploded, swiftly overpowering the other boy and slamming him against the lockers, chest to chest, each panting heavily against the other's mouth.

"Do you think I can't feel how nicely you're proving my point right now?" Harry breathed, an insolent smile spreading over his face. "Do you think I can't tell how much you want me?"

"You are beyond insufferable," Malfoy spat back.

Harry pushed his hips hard against Malfoy's and grinned. "You don't appear to be suffering..."

"I won't ask you again to shut up," Malfoy warned him, real danger edging over his tongue. After a shaky breath, Harry decided to risk it.

"Why don't you just make me?"

His head banged back against the lockers with the sheer force with which Malfoy lunged for his mouth, which would've been enormously painful if it wasn't for the biggest adrenaline high of Harry's life coursing through his body.

Lips met lips, tongue met tongue, and each boy tangled a hand hard through the other's hair for heightened sensation. Malfoy's other hand reached for Harry's throat and began to press skilfully either side of his windpipe, choking him as he desperately fought for more contact, always more and more and more.

This was the angriest kiss Harry had ever received in his life, including even the Halloween one when the sole purpose had been to draw blood - and he completely loved it.

"I told you," he choked out against the pressure of Malfoy's hand, but regretted the boast a second later when his lip was bitten hard between sharp white teeth, hard enough to make him yelp a little.

"How many times do I have to ask you to shut your fucking mouth?" Malfoy demanded, and Harry felt his breath catch in his throat and his entire stomach swivel over.

"If we're going to do this," Malfoy continued, "You have got to learn to stop sharing every thought that comes into your damn head!"

"If we're going to do what, exactly?" Harry asked tentatively, trying desperately to catch his breath.

"I assume you want that shag you've been banging on about," Draco rolled his eyes. "You're horny, I'm horny, let's get it over with."

"Romantic," Harry muttered, but flinched as Malfoy shoved his shoulder hard in frustration.

"Don't say shit like that, you little virgin, or I'll leave," he threatened, and that was enough to make Harry really be quiet. "Do I make myself clear?"

Instead of answering, Harry pulled Malfoy's face down to his again and received the same almost violent kiss as before which made him feel as though his knees were going weak underneath him.

"You can touch me, you know," Malfoy muttered, pulling back for a second to regard the other boy's wide eyes, and he didn't need to ask twice.

Harry's hands pushed gratefully under the green Slytherin jersey, running over smooth, toned skin and sharp hip bones he'd dreamed of touching for weeks now. As his fingers slipped over Malfoy's lower stomach he felt the other boy shiver deliciously.

Wordlessly, Malfoy lifted his arms up in response to the contact and they broke the kiss just long enough to slip his hoodie off over his head, before Harry followed suit. Their skin was burning hot as they pressed against one another once more, and it wasn't long before Malfoy (impatient at the best of times) decided to move things forward.

"Of course you keep lube in your locker," Harry said sarcastically as the other boy stretched up to grab the bottle, revealing a neat little V line above his Quidditch sweats.

"Never know when I'm going to get jumped by the Chosen One, do I?" Malfoy sneered. He slid his Quidditch joggers and boxers confidently down to rub three fingers' worth of the liquid solution over himself.

Harry blinked, not quite able to believe he was actually seeing the Draco Malfoy naked in front of him.

"C'mere," Malfoy muttered, heading back over to Harry. He looked at him for a second, a torn expression on his face.

"This is going to hurt, you know that?"

"Yeah, I know," Harry said quietly. "I kind of want it to hurt. Give me something to remember."

"I can do that."


	19. Worth It

The rumours were true. Malfoy was pretty good in bed, though perhaps 'against locker' would be a more accurate phrase. The boy certainly knew what he was doing either way.

Harry had been a little too stuck in his own head and focused on the pain of losing his virginity to enjoy the experience as much as he felt he otherwise could've done, but as first times went he assumed it was pretty good.

Not that Malfoy had said much on the subject, of course. Once he was finished he simply cleaned up, pulled his Quidditch kit back on and headed out of the door, saying he was going to sleep, and Harry didn't know why he was disappointed over this.

 _What did you expect, you utter wet wipe?_ he asked himself angrily. _Thought he might walk you up to your bedroom and hold your hand? Maybe kiss you goodnight? Pathetic._

He wondered how long it would be before the memories of that evening stopped flashing through his mind like a constant show - how long, for example, before he forgot how it felt to have his bare chest pushed up against the cold changing room lockers as the boy he adored finished roughly inside him, gripping onto the locker above Harry's head for stability as he did so and emitting a groan Harry had previously only ever heard in his wildest fantasies-

"Oh, Harry, God!"

How long before he could stop experiencing these memories in constant high-definition throughout the entirety of Potions class, and finally be able to stand up to leave on time without pulling fistfuls of his robes round his front?

Just hypothetically, of course.

Harry had hoped things would change now they'd finally had sex, maybe even in a positive light, but he quickly realised that that was naïvety.

Malfoy was still Malfoy, and this wasn't exactly his first time, even if it was Harry's. It wouldn't hold the same sentimental value for him - Harry wondered if he was even on his mind more than once or twice a day, if at all. It was hard to pretend that nothing had happened though, and it hurt Harry's feelings more than usual to be tormented and bullied by the other boy.

With every insult the urge to expose their little secret grew stronger - "I made you weak, Malfoy," he imagined himself saying. "You think you're so invincible, but I've watched you orgasm over me and you didn't look so powerful then. Your cum face makes you look like you're crying."

Malfoy certainly didn't seem to think it changed anything, though, and Harry wondered what exactly was wrong with the other boy's mind - surely he couldn't possibly think it was totally normal to take your enemy's virginity, and not something to discuss?

Harry was brushed off rudely when he'd attempted to discuss it himself, of course. "Is this just what you do then?" he'd asked irately when he caught Malfoy one evening on his way to Hall. "Just hit and run?"

Malfoy had blinked back at him, bemused. "If you're talking about when I left you in the changing rooms the other evening, Potter, then I don't think you know what 'hit and run' means. But yeah, since you're asking, that is what I usually do."

"Is that seriously all I'm worth to you?" Harry demanded, more than a little hurt at the dismissal. "Did you at least scratch a little notch on your bedpost for me, along with all the others that you don't care about?"

"I actually notch my broom, if you must know," Draco smirked, and Harry wondered why this image made his stomach drop into his crotch.

"But I assume you wrote about it in your gay little diary or something," the blonde continued. He put on a mincing, sarcastic tone. "Dear Diary, Draco Malfoy made love to me last night with his megacock-"

"I don't even keep a diary!" Harry snapped hotly, but of course he was ignored.

"He's so sexy and talented and he's got the biggest dick in the world and I can't sit down this week-"

"Look, Malfoy, you might think this whole thing is terribly funny, but you should know I'm different to whoever else you've been with before, ok?" Harry interrupted Malfoy's laughter angrily. "So next time you do ... that... to me - if there is a next time - you'd better fucking mean it."

Malfoy's lip quirked up nastily and he looked Harry slowly up and down, letting the weight of his gaze drip over his enemy's body like hot paint.

"You're different, are you?" he asked, and Harry knew somehow that Malfoy was about to say something really hurtful.

"That's interesting. Because I've done that dozens of times, Potter, and you really weren't anything unusual. You want me to stay, if there's a next time? And you want me to mean it?"

He paused, and licked his lips.

"Better make it worth my while."

Those words stung Harry for a long time.


	20. Mean It

"If there's a next time, you have to mean it," - the words Harry had spoken so forcefully drifted round his head, but he lost all conviction in them the second the other boy so much as looked at him.

He fully cracked the first night of the next Quidditch practice, of course - there had been some kind of weird hot tension in the air all evening, and when Harry asked the blonde what to do with it he grinned and said " _Just wait till it passes_ ", though his eyes suggested something else entirely.

Harry felt a hot rush run through him.

"Is that what you want to do?" he asked, his heart rate picking up.

"Not really," Malfoy replied in the usual lazy drawl that Harry found so attractive.

It was growing dark and cold enough on the pitch that everyone else was heading very swiftly for the showers, but there was enough light still for Harry to make out Malfoy's defined features under his shock of wind-tangled blonde hair, and it had to be acknowledged that he looked very, very tempting.

His pretty silver eyes were so fixed on Harry's from under their long lashes that Harry began to feel literally sick with how badly he wanted to be near the other boy.

"Will you mean it?" he whispered, and felt his heart wrench ever so slightly when he got the answer he expected. Of course not.

"But I can still show you a good time," Malfoy offered, and what was Harry going to say to that - no? It seemed ridiculous. He didn't think the word was even in his vocabulary when it came to Malfoy.

He could ask me for literally anything and I'd give it to him, Harry thought to himself, his eyes only stinging slightly at the pain of the realisation. The clothes off my back, the food off my plate, all the money in my bank. He can have it.

He hated himself for giving in so fast once the pitch was empty though, and melting so easily into the kiss Malfoy offered him against the back of the changing room building.

But he didn't protest at the familiar biting roughness of the kiss, or at the pain of Malfoy's rings tangling through his hair, or even when Malfoy forced the Gryffindor jumper up over his head to make Harry shiver in the November air (keeping his own green jersey hypocritically down), though Harry knew that that was as much an act of Malfoy's cruelty as his desire.

As the term slipped away towards Christmas it became somewhat of a habit for the two boys to hook up after the bi-weekly Quidditch practices and Harry looked forward to those days more than any others, though they were always his saddest days, too.

"This doesn't mean anything, ok?" Malfoy would mutter, pushing Harry down onto his knees in the showers or round the shadowy back of the changing block.

Every time that line would crush Harry like a stone, but he always submitted.

"We don't have to do this," he whispered painfully on the third or fourth occasion, and Malfoy's expression became pleading.

"Please let me," he replied in a slightly broken voice, holding Harry's hips hard as if to make sure he stayed. "I want to so badly. Please."

"But I'm still nothing to you?"

A pause; solid and earth-shattering.

"I ... I can't have it any other way."

Harry despised himself for letting that one slide, though the desperation had admittedly added an interesting new dimension to the sex that evening.

Malfoy had called him Harry again after that - he normally only ever did that when they were fucking, so this was a novelty.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," he'd mumbled, hands fumbling hard to slip his joggers fully up over his hips again.

It was cold outside and Harry was shivering, even with the layers of clothing he hadn't bothered to remove so much as just pull out of the way for Malfoy. He wrapped his arms around his body in a weird sort of embrace to keep himself warm. There'd be no chance of Malfoy doing something like this for me, he thought resentfully, squeezing tighter for comfort.

"Why are you sorry?" he asked, wrinkling his nose in confusion as Malfoy paced He seemed quite distressed.

"I just am," Malfoy mumbled. "I'm so fucking sorry for everything."

Harry found himself blinking to get rid of those same stars in his eyes which were always there when he saw Malfoy so vulnerable, no matter how many times he looked.

"Malfoy-"

"I'm fucking sorry, Harry, alright?"

"You're messing with my head, Malfoy."

"I'm sorry."

But still he didn't stay.

Ron and Hermione struggled watching their best friend slip under such a tide of pain that winter, and each insisted on hating Malfoy more intensely than ever, despite Harry's feeble efforts to defend him.

"He's using you for sex, Harry," Hermione insisted, on a private walk to Hogsmeade (a well-meaning attempt to distract her best friend from the walking talking nightmare of Draco Malfoy).

Harry shook his head simply, and Hermione couldn't help but wonder at how incredibly young and naïve he seemed for sixteen.

"Next time he might mean it," he insisted, and that was enough to chip a sore little piece off Hermione's heart.

"He won't, Harry," she told him gently, her eyes brimming with sympathetic tears. "You have to leave him alone. I can't watch you fall apart over him any more."

"I literally wouldn't know how to do that even if I wanted to," was Harry's reply, which effectively ended the conversation for the time being.

But Hermione and Ron's cause for concern increased as the end of the term drew nearer and Harry began to be missing more often than he was around.

He'd been right about what he told Hermione - although the two still publicly hated each other, Harry couldn't leave Malfoy alone if his life depended on it, and it was apparently getting worse.

They began slipping out of classes early to hook up whenever Draco gave him what Harry described mentally as "the glance", missing meals and losing sleep over one another yet unable to do anything but cause the other pain when they weren't naked.

Malfoy's cruel words tore Harry calmly apart in public, piece by aching piece, but when no one else was there he put him right back together again as if nothing happened, his tongue licking honey into every wound he'd ever made.

And the hands that had caused so much injury to Harry in their lives became heaven-soft in secret; they stuck to Harry's sensitive skin like spun sugar.

The lips that twisted such terrible words around him in public found that behind closed doors they couldn't leave his open mouth alone, and the stomach that had churned with anger and hatred for years over Harry found that there was no place better in the world than to be pushed up against his back while he gasped.

Malfoy wanted Harry again and again and over again, seemingly never bored: in class, in the bathroom, on the pitch, by the lake, in his sleep, he wanted Harry everywhere at all times of the day, and Harry wanted him back more than he wanted to breathe.

Harry's suffering grew so bad by December that Hermione felt the need to intervene, and cornered Malfoy herself one day before he could sneak off after Harry to the bathrooms.

She'd long been contemplating the special way that the Slytherin looked at her best friend, as though it was nice to be the best thing the dark-haired boy had ever seen, rather than something pretty sad and awful.

"You have to stop hurting him, Malfoy," she told him, knowing the blonde knew who she was talking about immediately. "He really will break."

Malfoy blinked down at her in genuine confusion. "Can you point me to a time when i ever cared about that?" he asked. "I'm well aware of what I'm doing, and I don't wish to discuss it with Mudbloods."

Hermione was so desensitised to the word that she didn't even flinch. "You're a really nasty piece of work, Malfoy, you know that?" she asked.

He grinned brazenly. "Oh, I know. It's a fine art of mine."


	21. A Change in the Fire

Then one frosty morning in the last week of term, Harry realised that his infatuation with Draco Malfoy was unexpectedly over, and in its place was complete and helpless love for the other boy.

He'd woken uncharacteristically early that morning and risen early too, which lead to his inadvertently following Malfoy down to breakfast, and catching him in a surprisingly gentle encounter with a House Elf.

"Master Malfoy," the elf was grovelling as it scurried to keep up with him down the long corridor, little head bobbing up and down like a dandelion in the wind.

Malfoy slowed his pace kindly, and looked down at the creature with a distinct lack of contempt which shocked Harry to his core. It was almost warm, the softest he'd ever looked to Harry, who dropped back to ensure his shock wasn't seen.

"Yes, Hokey?" Malfoy asked. Harry watched from afar as the other boy stopped entirely and then crouched right down to be at eye-level with the elf, the way one might address a small child.

"Master Malfoy, Hokey has supplied you with the new Potions book which you requested of Hokey," the elf reported shyly, and pulled the textbook in question out from behind its back with a flourish.

Malfoy accepted it with a grateful nod. "Very good of you, Hokey," he said, and if House Elves could blush, Harry knew Hokey would've done.

He marvelled silently to himself at the wonder of Draco Malfoy as the blonde bid a polite goodbye to the elf and strolled beautifully off down the corridor again, blissfully ignorant to Harry's stare. He was beautiful when he was cruel, but kindness morphed him from Malfoy to Draco in Harry's eyes, and made him ethereal.

The early morning rays dappled through the panes of the corridor's windows and bathed Draco's figure in silken gold as he walked, glimmering celestially off every blonde hair on his head. The soft light washed over his bare hands too, for once without his heavy rings as they peeked out of his robes, and the delicacy of the golden hue made them seem close to fragile.

For the first time since Harry had laid eyes on him, Draco appeared utterly incapable of inflicting pain on someone else, and worthy of complete adoration, which Harry was more than happy to give him for once.

Funny how something so simple as a kind word and a pretty light could spark such a fire inside Harry's existence. Except this wasn't a fire like the previous fires Harry had learnt to associate with Draco; not one of craving and lust, built on the kind of desire that was indistinguishable from anguish, but something entirely new and unfamiliar to him.

The flames of before had burnt his heart up from the pit of his stomach, but this new fire was slow, gentle, a warm glow which radiated all the way under Harry's skin and soothed his aching soul.

A rush of something untouchably precious rolled through him in that realisation, and he recognised it immediately for what it was. It couldn't be anything but love.

Despite Draco's arrogance, his history, his quickness for malice, Harry knew he loved him now, and he'd love him later, too. Perhaps that had always been the case, ever since they'd met.

He walked to class in a daze.

***

That evening Malfoy waltzed over to the Gryffindor table as Harry and his friends were leaving, and shoved a card unceremoniously into Harry's hands.

"Come or don't come, I don't care," the blonde shrugged carelessly as he turned to leave as quickly as he came. "I'll be out of my mind anyway that night."

The card was small and expensively thick, with silver embossed swirls on the corners and a little green Slytherin wax seal on the opening. Harry pealed it off gently, careful not to rip the paper or damage the pretty wax.

"What is it, Harry?" Hermione asked curiously.

"It's an invitation!" Harry said in surprise, reading the shimmering printed message.

_You are cordially invited to the Slytherin Yuletide Party as the personal guest of D. L. Malfoy on Friday 19th December 1996 at 8pm._

_The theme is 'A Midwinter Night's Dream', so please dress accordingly for a night in the Slytherin dungeons filled with banquets, fairy wine, and bewitchment._

"How very bloody Slytherin," Ron scoffed at the whole formality of the exchange.

Harry didn't even hear him over the sound of his own panic.

"What am I going to wear, Hermione?" he asked in a slightly croaky voice. "Friday's tomorrow - this is the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to me!"

"You fought a Basilisk, Harry," Hermione pointed out incredulously. "I think you'll manage an outfit for a Christmas party."

This didn't calm Harry's nerves at all. "I think I'd take the Basilisk right now," he said, loosening his tie with shaky hands and stuffing the card into his robe pocket as though that would get rid of his anxiety too. "God, is it really hot in here?"

"No, you're just going into cardiac arrest," Ron rolled his eyes in amusement. "Are you really that scared?"

"Yes!" Harry protested. "I'm not like Malfoy, Ron. I don't know about etiquette or dress codes or anything - I'm almost certainly about to humiliate myself again."

"You do that all the time in front of Malfoy, what's different now?" Ron asked, earning himself a swift elbow from Hermione.

"Thanks, Ronald," Harry said sarcastically. "You always know what to say, don't you?"

 _It's different because I'm in love with him,_ he thought. _Because I want him to love me. And I'm sick of ripping my soul apart with all this trying._

The new fire flickered a little brighter in his core as he pictured the artfully nonchalant look on Draco's face when he'd handed over the card. ' _The personal guest_ ', it had read, words which sent shivers down Harry's spine. I'm Draco's personal guest. He chose me.

Whatever happened, whatever Malfoy said to hurt him in the future, however shitty he was, no one could take that knowledge away from Harry. Somehow, the thought comforted him.


	22. Fairy Wine

The Slytherin Common Room had never looked so good as it did on the last Friday of Hogwarts' term in 1996.

Armfuls of emerald ivy vines had been strung around the space and hundreds of twinkling candles nestled in each loop, casting sparkling light across the scene. Rose petals laid pristine paths through the room to the drinks tables, the dance floor and the sitting areas, and more petals drifted like feathers down from the ceiling to replace the old ones as they were sullied by expensive brogues and heels.

Someone had conjured a delicate haze over the area, giving it a soft, film-like quality, and coloured lanterns filled with fireflies cut through the mist to illuminate faces and bodies with shards of jewel colours.

And in the centre of it all was Draco Malfoy, every inch the Slytherin king in extravagant long holographic robes, a silver snake-head sceptre firmly grasped in his hand, and an iridescent shimmer on his cheekbones that glistened in the light whenever he moved. Most impressive of all were the translucent silken wings on the boy's back that he'd charmed to flicker as though they could really fly him into the sky whenever he chose.

As he swayed, Draco rolled a mouthful of opal-coloured liquid around his mouth from his glass, enjoying the slightly acrid aftertaste that gave away its high potency, but then sighed. The music was pumping through his veins, the wine was going to his head just as it should, but he didn't feel completed yet.

He should have known Potter would stand him up.

***

Potter, meanwhile, was having a similar dilemma. He was sticking firmly to the walls of the Slytherin Common Room (having been allowed entrance after displaying Draco's invite), searching desperately for a blonde in the sea of serpents.

He had helped himself to a scarlet lollipop from one of the tables, more for something to do with his hands than a real desire for sugar, and ground his teeth against it awkwardly.

"What's the point in inviting me if he isn't going to meet me here?" he muttered to himself, shoving his free hand frustratedly in his pocket.

He was glad he'd followed Hermione's fashion advice in the end at least. The white and gold robes he'd bought with her in a panicked Hogsmeade shopping spree that lunchtime did look a much more appropriate costume for the theme than his regular black ones, and he liked the way the colours from the lanterns refracted off the material. He wondered if Draco would like them, if he ever turned up.

 _Maybe I should just leave,_ he thought, but in a whirl he was spun back around by a cool hand, such urgency it made him dizzy.

"Leaving so soon, Potter?" asked the boy that he loved, taking the lollipop smoothly from Harry's mouth and replacing it in his hand with a glass of something shiny. "At least stay for a drink. You don't want to be rude now, do you?"

Harry's eyes widened as Draco slipped the crimson sweet - still wet with Harry's saliva - into his own mouth, clicking it against his teeth. Then he rolled it decadently around his mouth with his tongue, coating the inside with traces of scarlet sugar and making it hard for Harry to respond.

"I'm staying," he managed, taking a hasty deep gulp of the liquid in his glass.

The drink was pretty and sweet and almost silky in texture, though there was something in the aftertaste that Harry had never tried before and couldn't describe. There were peach and orange edible flowers floating on the top, and he put the aftertaste down to having something to do with them, though he couldn't be sure.

Draco smirked approvingly as Harry drank.

"Good boy, get that down you," he said. He sucked the lollipop hard into the hollows of his cheekbones again then let his jaw release to allow it to slide slowly over his tongue, revealing flashes of bright red that made the world spin faster.

Harry downed his glass obediently and reached for another, desperate for the buzz of courage that the alcohol could give him.

"Thirsty, Potter?" Draco asked with amusement, though he helped himself to a second glass from the table, too.

Harry didn't know what to respond to that, but it was certainly true that more than one type of thirst was overwhelming him at that particular moment.

There was a question underlying it, though, which had been bothering him for a while, and Harry felt he needed to get the answer before anything progressed that night. He wasn't sure exactly how to broach it but sheer curiosity swiftly got the better of him. "Malfoy," he began, "Have you ... have you done anyone since me?"

Malfoy looked away, suddenly slightly awkward. "Why do you ask?"

Harry shrugged. "Just interested. Have you?"

A pause.

"No. You... satisfy me more fully than I'm used to." Malfoy said. "And now, if you don't stop me," his voice became lower, a barely audible growl over the music, "I am going to kiss you."

Arousal flared through Harry's body - he should be used to this by now, but every time was exciting.

"I'm not going to stop you," he mumbled, before he was kissed more softly by Malfoy than he'd ever been kissed by anyone in his life, and felt like he was floating on air.

He couldn't believe this was the same boy who liked to bite him to watch him flinch, who'd drawn actual blood from Harry countless times, who was now moving his tongue so sweetly between their mouths, running his hands so peacefully over Harry's waist to pull him in.

"You're acting sort of unusual," Harry said when he pulled back, and instantly regretted the sentence - he didn't want to sound like he was complaining by any means! But the other boy didn't seem to care.

"This is the real me, baby."

Draco took a deep sip of his drink, then exhaled in pleasure. He smirked a little, running a ringed finger round the rim of the crystal glass. His pupils were huge, Harry noticed with surprise, like two great abysses in his flashing silver irises.

Harry had never felt so emotionally close to another person before, and found himself yearning for more of Draco's attention.

"Do you want to go down to my dorm?" Malfoy asked thoughtfully. "I have something I could show you."

"I've never wanted anything more," Harry replied, aware that he sounded more than a little needy.

And as he followed him into the dark, Harry didn't fight the urge to grab the blonde boy's hand.


	23. The Artist and His Muse

Harry had been expecting the "something" Draco wanted to show him to be Draco's dick (it would have been a rather on-brand joke for the Slytherin) but instead when they got down to Draco's part of the boys' dorms, the blonde knelt down and pulled a large leatherbound book from under his bed.

Wordlessly, he laid it out on the sheets and Harry joined him in a kneeling position on the floorboards to have a better look.

Nothing could have prepared him for the contents.

Hours and hours of the most delicate artwork Harry'd ever seen covered every beautiful page; pictures of the castle shrouded in clouds, of the view of the lake from his window, and dark, twisted self-portraits, where Draco had drawn himself in charcoal with his eyes scored out and the Dark Mark emblazoned over his forehead and chest as well as both his arms. That particular series had small wet splatters all over it, which had been smudged out with chalky fingers.

And then, towards the back, was Harry.

The sketches weren't at all explicit or vulgar, yet they still had an incredible intimacy about them which made them feel as though they shouldn't be viewed. It was Harry, in a way that only Draco had ever seen him. Harry, beautiful, but torn apart and angry and wrecked. Harry's soul on the page.

He'd left the colour out of the sketches but somehow Draco knew you could still feel it. Harry clearly could, because he went red the second he saw it.

 _He's drawn me in venom,_ Harry couldn't help thinking, _drawn me dripping in it._ But he couldn't tear his eyes away.

"I didn't know you did this," he whispered, and Draco shrugged.

"I don't know why I do."

After a frozen moment of consideration, Draco arched his muse gently back over the pictures of himself, hovering above his face for a second to drink him in: _and so the artist makes love to his art,_ he thought _. What a dream._

Then he took a sip from his glass, set it aside, and opened his mouth to let a pretty stream of wine drip from his lips into Harry's willing open mouth, and that was enough of a wave to start the tsunami.

Harry's head was spinning hard before he even he kissed Draco back, and his skin tingled with an unfamiliar level of elation - part of it must be the alcohol, he assumed, but part had to be the intoxicating glory of Draco Malfoy and his mouth.

One thing was different, though, and that was the lack of resistance between their hips, which became increasingly concerning for Harry. Even when he'd really hated him, Malfoy had never struggled to get it up- was it something Harry had done?

Luckily, Draco knew exactly what was going on.

"I just need to get something," he said, and he straddled Harry to reach his drawers, putting more weight on him than he had before. He rummaged through his drawers and drew out a plastic sheet of blue tablets marked with a telltale 'V', the packet at least a quarter empty.

He popped one out and broke off half, which he necked with a drag of his wine. It looked like a little piece of blue chalk on his tongue. "Do you want the other half?" he asked. "I can tell the drink has affected you the same way."

"What is it?"

"Viagra."

Harry laughed incredulously. "You're seventeen, why do you have viagra?" he asked.

Draco looked at him as if he was stupid.

"Obviously because I fuck on molly?" he replied, gesturing to his drink.

Harry's eyes widened as the realisation sunk in. " _Molly_? Draco-"

"What?"

"There's ecstasy in this?!! I didn't know! I didn't even know you could drink ecstasy!"

Draco looked at him with a slightly scornful frown. "Oh, yeah. And you can if it's powdered up. I'm sorry I assumed you'd know what 'fairy wine' was, Potter. It should be hitting by now."

"Why didn't you check with me?" Harry asked, but he was unable to feel particularly panicked or angry about it, as Draco was right and it was hitting.

"Because it's about to change your life," the blonde whispered, pushing the other half of the tablet into Harry's mouth with his tongue and spitting a little to help him get it down.

He left his tongue in there long after Harry had swallowed, swirling it gently around the inside of his mouth, and Harry reciprocated gladly. Every nerve was heightened by the chemicals in what they'd drunk, every cell in their bodies appeared to be animated and fizzing, and even just kissing was heavenly.

"I'm in love with you," Harry whispered suddenly, shock and devotion and shame bleeding into his words. "I'm in love with you, and I hope you know."

He wasn't sure quite why he said it other than that he was beautifully high and it felt like the right thing to do, but Draco didn't stop him so Harry carried on.

"I love you, Draco," he moaned against Draco's mouth, and though the other boy never returned the sentiment, he found he couldn't stop saying it. It was the most intense and dangerous feeling in the world.

When they were ready to take it further, Draco stayed chest-to-chest with Harry the whole time instead of just forcing the boy's head down or his hips up like normal, and for this Harry was grateful.

Their bodies moved much in the way that a wave does, in cascades of pleasure and elation, and for a time all the love on the planet existed between the two souls on Draco Malfoy's bedsheets.

"Have you ever loved someone as much as I love you?" Harry panted as he got close, screwing up his eyes as though it hurt him to think about it.

"More," Draco shook his head, and then he kissed him with such love it was almost a tragedy, and the front of Harry's head exploded with white heat - this is euphoria, he said - Draco's skin glimmered under his touch.

His heart seems to speak the same language mine does, Harry recognised at once. It was some kind of beautiful tiny heaven contained in a boy.

And it was over, and a million tiny fragments of infinity scattered over their bodies as the boys threw themselves back on the sheets, illuminating their skin in colours that didn't have names, and sewing together the gaping wounds they'd made in each other's souls for the past few years.

"Can you see that?" Harry asked, breathless with wonder and the weight of his joy, and Draco nodded.

"You could live in colour like this forever, you know," he said quietly, and he slid the pages out from behind Harry's head, so that colourless drawing-Harry and real-Harry stared up at him as one.

"I could make your life look like this without ecstasy. If you wanted."

"You know I want that," Harry smiled softly. "But this is you and me we're talking about. I don't think we even know what that kind of stability is."

His jaw had begun to tense and grind by now, and upon seeing this Draco swiftly reached into the pocket of his discarded robes for another lollipop, his lips still lightly crimson from the first.

"That's what these are here for," he told Harry as he tore the wrapper off. "Ecstasy makes you grind your teeth and these are a good distraction. Open your mouth for me."

"Always," Harry said dreamily, only half-joking. He paused, soaking in the moment and enjoying the wash of sugar over his tongue. "Draco?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I stay here tonight?"

Draco paused, torn between his high, his attraction, and his common sense. The latter lost. It didn't even put up a fight.

"Yeah, I'd like that," he said. "Stay with me."


	24. An Unusual Encounter

Harry slipped out of the Slytherin forms before the sunrise that Saturday morning, and headed quickly for his own dorm to fetch his Invisibility Cloak.

He had hardly slept and felt increasingly shit on the comedown from Draco's 'fairy wine' from the night before - he was right, ecstasy was a hell of a drug. Still, he'd been warned that this part wouldn't be fun.

"I take it you'd never done molly before tonight?" Draco had asked him before they slept, and Harry had shaken his head.

"Ok, well you should know there's a hell of a comedown. Tomorrow's going to be a write-off and probably the two days after that too."

He'd checked the time; it was two in the morning. "It's Saturday," Harry said, "That means the Express leaves for London tomorrow - is it going to be really bad?"

"Yeah," Draco nodded. "You'll get anxious, dizzy, paranoid - it's not fun. Even when you take the really really good shit, which, for your information, the stuff you took was."

"I don't doubt it," Harry rolled his eyes. "Imagine you not having the best of something."

But Draco had been right again, of course. Anxiety, dizziness, and paranoia were all good words to explain the turmoil inside Harry's body that morning, and there were plenty more besides.

As he walked the empty halls towards the Gryffindor tower, Harry was glad he'd dipped from the Slytherin dorms before Draco woke up. Because if Harry felt shit, Draco always insisted on feeling fifty times worse, and had no problems taking it out on Harry as a punching bag. Things could be different after the intense romantic quality of the night before, but that sort of thing wasn't worth the risk where Malfoy was concerned.

Harry wondered if a hot bath would make him feel better, and resolved to run one quietly before grabbing his cloak and heading to Hogsmeade. He'd already bought for all his friends and the Weasleys, but it seemed that now he had one last present to buy.

***

Draco himself was far less keen to rise and shine even by late afternoon. He'd sat through plenty of comedowns before in class, but this one was gearing up to be particularly earth-splitting.

It seemed the more he took the drug, the worse it hurt him afterwards, and he'd been making a serious dent in his supply that term.

The one thing he didn't expect to see when he finally decided to get up for a drink, however, was the small form of Ginny Weasley at the foot of his bed like some sort of orange sleep paralysis demon.

"Don't scream," was the first thing she said, which Draco found both infuriating and laughably ridiculous.

"Why the fuck would I scream?"

She shrugged. "You seem prone to drama."

There was no arguing with that.

"I'll get to the point," the Weasel sighed. "You hate Harry Potter, right?"

The 'yes' didn't come as swiftly as usual to Draco's lips.

It seemed hypocritical to say he hated Harry when his bed was still soaked in Harry's scent from the night before, when his sheets were practically still warm from the shape of Harry's body, and his lips were bruised from Harry's mouth.

But Draco was aching and drained, so he said it nonetheless.

"I hate him too," Weaslette nodded, her head on one side and a devilish look in her eyes.  
"And I have an idea for a way we could hurt him."

Cunning didn't suit her, Draco noticed. Made her look even Weaslier. God, how had Potter banged that?

But before he could actually respond, the younger girl had reached boldly out and began to dryly rub Draco's crotch over the duvet. The contact felt like an electric shock; his senses kicked in and he recoiled.

"What are you doing, you stupid bitch?!" he exploded, forcing himself backwards up the bed and pulling his knees to his chest like a shield. "Get the fuck out of my dorm! God, you're a creep! How did you even get in here?!!"

"I just wanted to-"

"Ugh, I don't want to know! I can't believe you'd touch me like that! Fuck off before I'm sick."

Bloody weirdo.

***

When Hermione and Ron couldn't find Harry that morning, Hermione went instantly into concerned mode.

"All I'm saying, Ronald, is that it's eerily similar to the last time he partied with Draco Malfoy!" she was saying as she paced around the Gryffindor boys' dorm. "And last time he was gone, it was because Malfoy had been vile to him - what if this time he's been worse?"

"Last time he bit him till he bled, and then laughed about his dead parents. I don't think he could do any worse," Ron pointed out.

Hermione didn't laugh, so he sighed dejectedly.

  
"I don't know what you want me to do. I sent Ginny up to check if he's in the Slytherin dorms, about five minutes ago. Just chill till then," he told her, but he might as well have told the sun not to shine.

Hermione was already on her way back out the portrait door to find Malfoy and give her a piece of her mind, and part of Ron pitied the bloke. He followed his friend, though. It was always fun to watch Hermione bollock Malfoy.

The blonde was conveniently on his way out of the dorms when the pair arrived, and Hermione happily cornered him, wand already out.

"God, are all you Gryffindors trying to bloody kill me today?!" Draco asked, exasperated.

"What did you do, Malfoy?" the girl demanded, ignoring his question. "Harry's gone and it's obviously to do with you because all you do is hurt him, so tell us what you fucking did this time!"

"I haven't done anything!" Malfoy protested. "I really don't know where the stupid bastard is any better than you do."

"Did he stay with you last night? Ginny was meant to come and ask you."

Malfoy toyed with the idea of lying, but decided against it. "Yeah, he stayed."

"Well, is he there now?" Ron asked, just as Ginny rounded the corner, fists balled at her sides.

"No, he's bloody not," she hissed angrily, storming past the group. "Malfoy's probably _poisoned_ him."

"What's wrong with her?" Ron said irritably, but his expression darkened when he caught sight of Malfoy's expression.

"Do you know something, Malfoy?" Hermione asked with sudden suspicion.

" _He's_ not going to like it," Draco sighed, glancing pointedly at Ron.

It took the Gryffindors a second to work out what he meant, and Malfoy spent that particular second preparing himself for impact. It came promptly.

"You didn't!" Ron roared, slamming into the other boy harder than either of them had expected, and grabbing him aggressively by the tie. "That's my LITTLE SISTER, you creep! And she's barely just got over Harry!"

"Believe me, she did all the work-" Draco began, but Ron slammed him hard against the wall again and cut the sentence off.

"Not like that, Weasel! Ugh, as if," Malfoy snapped when he regained his breath. "I just mean she came on to me. But we absolutely didn't have sex. I'm not that bloody quick- she was only there for thirty seconds!!"

Ron's breathing was still heavy and it was clear he wasn't letting Malfoy off the hook in a hurry, but he was listening now at least.

Draco got the upper hand in this moment of relapse, and shrugged out of Ron's grasp to lean against the opposite wall. The redhead knew better than to approach him again.

"And for the record," Malfoy continued, "that's not why your precious Potter's not here. This happened after he left, I didn't even hear him go, and you just jumped to your own conclusions."

"What happened, then?" Ron asked reluctantly. "With Ginny."

Malfoy paused. "Do you really want to know?"

Ron grimaced. "What do you mean, do I really want to know?"

Malfoy fought a blush; God, since when was he so embarrassable? "Just do you want me to - ok, fine. If you must know, she groped me. Tried to give me a handjob. I was... still intoxicated. And it stopped before it got going at all. Happy with that?"

Ron was revolted. "Happy?!??!" he asked, looking like he might be sick.

"Harry's going to take this even less well if he doesn't already know," Hermione warned him as Ron dry-retched against the wall.

"What's Harry going to take less well?" called a familiar voice from behind them. Draco turned, and immediately blanched.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, I'm about to get my head kicked in."


	25. Fractures

Draco's head remained remarkably un-kicked-in, but Harry grew pale and wan when he was told what had happened, and he dropped the brown paper bag he'd been holding behind his back loudly to the floor.

"Sometimes, Malfoy," he said, his eyes brimming with tears and his glasses fogging up slightly, "I wonder why I bother. I really do. You're unbearable."

And with that, he turned and ran from the room, unable to see or hear anyone or anything that wasn't his pain.

Hermione stared at the blonde, who was fixed to the spot, his expression of amusement slipping slightly. "Go after him, you prick!" she snapped. " _Accio Harry's robes_ \- here you go, take these with you. It looks like it's raining quite heavily."

Before Draco could protest, Granger thrust the bundle of very _Harry_ -scented black material into his arms and shoved him towards the portrait. Too tired to argue, he obeyed.

The worst part, he thought as he walked, the worst part was that he'd almost let the Weasley bitch do what she wanted. Just for half a second, he'd considered it.

Was it just a habit now, to hurt Potter? Or was it still what he actively wanted, no matter what else he wanted alongside it?

Draco wished he didn't remember the night before. More than that, he wished it hadn't been the best of his life.

 _Has Potter always been so angelically beautiful?_ he wondered before he could bite the thought back. Harry was fit, sure, but words like _exquisite_ had begun to flit through Draco's mind, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

And oh God, those words he'd moaned against Draco's mouth. He'd never felt so captivated, so adored in his life.

So why did he still fantasise about all the pain he could inflict on the other boy? He knew he had Harry's heart now, however he wanted it. Why not just accept it?

_I wouldn't know how, even if I wanted to._

Something in his intuition told Draco to head to the Lake to find Harry, so he forced his way down the rain-slicked stone steps, breathing heavily as he did so. It was disorientating to fight through this much water, and certainly the last thing Draco's trembling body craved as he came down from the previous night. He groaned inwardly as he realised he could be looking for Potter all evening.

"If the fucker isn't down there I'll leave him to it," Draco resolved, but in the end his instinct was right and Potter was indeed by the lake.

He was a picture of misery, his figure hunched completely over, and clearly racked with sobs. His shirt and trousers clung to his skin and Draco wondered if he was allowed to enjoy the sight just a little.

"Granger asked me to give you this," said Draco quietly when he reached the other boy, shoving the armful of now-sodden robes at him and flinching at the brief skin contact as though he'd never touched him before. Which, he supposed, he probably hadn't. Not like this, anyway, not so neutrally.

He cleared his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing as he did so. "About that Weasel thing, Potter - it wasn't how it sounded. I didn't explain properly."

Harry squinted up at him, his expression of unbridled fury evident even through the wall of rain. "It's never how it sounded, is it, Malfoy?" he asked cuttingly, though he made no effort to pretend he wasn't sobbing. "It's never your fault, never your decision."

For once Draco let him speak, shivering hard in the downpour. He'd never felt so miserable.

"And you know what, fine, maybe this wasn't your fault. But what _is_ your fault is your reaction. You fucking _laughed_ when you told me about it-"

"That was nervous laughter! She molested me, Potter, I find the whole thing extremely bizarre!"

"I don't care! I literally don't care! You should've tried harder to not hurt me with it," Harry's voice cracked as he spoke. "Because actually, shit like this inevitably always is your fault, Draco, whatever you say."

"I can't believe how unfair you're being," Draco gasped. "I told you I didn't want anything off her, ok? Fuck, Potter, you know I only ever want to bang you now."

"God, teen romance," Harry rolled his eyes angrily. "Seriously though, I can't believe you'd be so careless after what we did last night."

Draco shifted uncomfortably. "It was just sex," he said. "Don't say _romance_ like that."

"Except it wasn't just sex. Don't you remember what I s-"

"Potter, we were on ecstasy," Draco interrupted hurriedly. "Most people I've slept with on that drug have said exactly the same thing. And trust me, because I do it all the fucking time."

"I meant it."

"No, you aren't going to do this."

The metre between them felt like miles; no matter how hard he tried, the space between them warped Draco's intentions and made them ugly.

 _I don't know how to talk to you,_ he tried to tell Harry with his eyes. _But for once I'm really trying to save us both from each other._

Draco didn't want to hear the words the other boy wanted to say, and he knew Harry didn't want to hear his either. So what was the fucking point?

"Just please don't say something you'll regret," he insisted.

"But I swear I meant it, Draco, I really l-"

"That's enough!" Draco shook his head roughly as though trying to get rid of the vision before him. "Get out of the rain and go to bed. Your own bed."

"Are you serious?"

"My robes are getting wet."

 _Fuck_. _Fuck_. _Selfish_. Harry's face twisted with hurt. Draco desperately tried to focus, to burn the image into his mind to paint later - it would make a beautiful painting -

"You're really spiteful, you know that?" Harry wept, oblivious. "I'm trying to tell you how hard I'm falling for you while you're standing here looking like you hope I fall all the way, right to my death."

"I just don't know how to talk to you," Draco whispered, but this evidently wasn't the right thing to say either.

"Just try, would you?!" Harry waved his arms wildly in the air in front of Draco's face, as if trying to snap him into reality. "I'm not even asking you for romantic gestures, Draco, because I know you're fucking incapable. I just want you to fuck me sober, once, like you vaguely care about it. Like I'm not just a convenient way for you to get off. Maybe ask me how I am sometime too. Hey, how about this: maybe just don't hurt me any more."

"I hurt you even when I'm not trying to," Draco admitted, exasperated and lost. "I think about it all the time: maybe I'm just built for malice. Something went wrong when I was born, maybe, or there's a mis-wiring in my brain. Or my heart doesn't beat right, I don't know."

He raked a hand through his sopping hair, slicking it back to his skull. It was all he could to not to split apart in front of the other boy.

"It's excuses again though, isn't it, Draco?" Harry murmured sadly. "And one day, those excuses are going to run out and you're going to be so lonely."

A small fracture. "I know."

"Because while I will find countless other people in my life to be in love with, and will have that love reciprocated, I doubt you'll have more than infatuations in your life," Harry continued.

He looked as though the words hurt him as much to say as they hurt Draco to hear. Both boys drew a shaky breath; they got the feeling that what Harry was going to say next would hurt. And it did, but he forced it out anyway like barbed wire over his tongue.

"You are the most deeply unpleasant, vindictive being I ever had the misfortune to meet, Draco Malfoy," he choked. "And I'm sorry I ever thought you were more."

A bigger fracture. Serious, lasting damage.

"Because, after everything we've been through, after every chance to redeem yourself," Harry's chest heaved painfully, "You are still nothing but a vicious, spiteful bully who gets high off other people's feelings. But you can't use mine any more."

Draco's whole mind lit up in anguish, a deep, inexplicable, blazing pain that stopped his heart for several beats.

"Do you realise what you're asking when you beg for me to be closer to you, Potter?" he croaked. "Do you know what a nightmare I am? What terror I am capable of? I'd kill you from the inside out, you know I would."

"You're already doing it," Harry cried.

The rain lashed down blindingly hard. It seemed like it was now reaching the boys' bones, licking over them like ice as the quality of the sky's darkness deepened. Draco realised in that moment that if grief could be a colour, it would be forever associated in his mind with that livid violet-grey. He knew now how a person could grieve for something they never had. Never even wanted.

"I ... I have to go," Draco whispered. He wasn't sure if his words were audible over the crescendo of the rain, but he also wasn't sure he wanted Harry to hear them.

On an impulse, he grabbed Harry's screwed up soaking face - clumsily, hastily - and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, trying to convey all the horror of his emotions in one simple motion. And then he walked away. He'd done what he was asked to do. He hoped Harry understood.


	26. Lakes Like Lovers

Harry's lips hurt more after that kiss in the rain than they had after any of the others before. It felt like Draco had really taken something from him this time, something internal.

It was a Dementor's kiss, that's what it was like.

Like every time Draco's lips touched Harry's he sucked away a little more life, a little more spirit and resolve, and in its place was coldness and heartache and spite.

Despite this, Harry had been hoping to catch the other boy that morning to give him the gift he'd found in Hogsmeade the day before, but he was nowhere to be found.

Harry wasn't sure Malfoy deserved a gift, if truth be told, but he hadn't known what else to do. He wasn't sure Malfoy deserved love either, but he still gave him that, didn't he?

But the Slytherin was up with the sun as ever, desperate to avoid Harry, and so his Christmas present went unopened.

 _Why would you expect him to act like a normal person?_ Harry berated himself afterwards _. Why would he bother to say goodbye to you? He doesn't owe you that._

But he was still distraught.

So distraught, in fact, that he decided not to even get on the Express; he didn't want to ruin the Weasleys' Christmas with his own colossal feelings. Better to attempt to deal with the thoughts on his own over the holidays.

Ron and Hermione would be upset and confused when they realised he wasn't on the train, of course, but he knew they'd get over it. Anything would be better than burdening them the way he'd been trying not to for months now.

"God, Potter," he whispered in an uncannily Malfoy-esque tone as he watched the train pull away from the station. "What's become of you?"

He only managed one glimpse of the blonde head he craved so badly before it was out of sight entirely.

***

The next few days were a blur. No other Gryffindors Harry knew had chosen to stay over the holidays, and the other House tables were relatively empty too. He avoided the Hall at mealtimes for this reason, or if his hunger was unignorable then he'd just slip in, grab just enough to keep him going, and slip back out again.

He took his broom up a lot more than usual these days in an attempt to outrun his thoughts and get rid of the flashes of Malfoy that ruled both his waking and his dreaming consciousness. He'd fly as fast as he dared and often faster to feel invincible, but sometimes when he caught sight of his silhouette in the Black Lake he was struck by how small and lonely he looked. Like a little boy playing pretend with a broom.

When he wasn't in the air, Harry had taken to going down to the banks of the lake at erratic times, and forcing himself in, though the ice sometimes had to be cracked around the edges - December that year was particularly unforgiving in a number of ways.

And his mind - his mind was manic, constantly hungering after the next hit, the next thrill. With Malfoy gone there was nothing so cleansing as the cruel coldness of the Lake to Harry's bones. It was a familiar coldness that satiated his constant need for sensation, for a reminder that his heart was beating.

 _The Lake treats me like Malfoy does,_ Harry realised, basking in the vice-like grip of the water as though it were a soft cradle. It felt as though the water was lulling him into a gentle death. _He holds me like this, takes all my air like this._

He let it hold him _just_ to the point of danger, then forced himself out before his muscles seized and dragged him under. _Another grim similarity,_ he thought.

Later, he dressed in front of the mirror, hardly breaking eye contact with the eyes that stared impassively back at him. Lily's eyes, Lupin said, Sirius said. Had they ever looked this empty? Greenless, ringed with ghostly shadows. Like one of Draco's drawings.

A week without him. Only a week more. Why was it killing him so much to be alone?

He'd stopped hoping Malfoy would write days ago, though sometimes Harry replied to Ron and Hermione's letters to pass the time. Sometimes he didn't.

There was one from Ginny a couple of days after Christmas, a long apology that he half read before tossing it on the fire, though it hurt him not to read the words that she wrote. God knew he'd done vile things for love too.

 _Good that you apologised, Gin,_ he'd written back, trying not to sound too curt. _I feel you owe more than just me an apology though. I know he's inevitably to blame too, he often is, but think about it._

She probably wouldn't think about it, though, and Malfoy probably didn't deserve an apology, but Harry felt powerless if he didn't at least ask. Despite it all, he found he still wanted to win favour with the other boy, in the hopes that he'd - what? Fuck him again? Love him? Maybe not laugh about his dead parents again? He didn't know.

One night, after a swim so late that the Lake was indistinguishable from the sky, Harry paused on the staircase up to the Gryffindor dormitories. Pictured Malfoy's bed lying empty in the Slytherin dorms, pictured his own white costume robes on the bedpost from after the infamous Slytherin party.

"I'll just get my robes then come up to my own bed," he told himself, making the turn down the stairs before they swung out behind him, though he knew he had no interest in the robes above a slight sentimental value.

His pace quickened as he neared the basement, and he hoped that he'd been right, and none of Draco's dorm-mates would have stayed over the vac. Slytherins didn't usually tend to; they often had lavish Pureblood stately homes to return to, and servants awaiting their every breath - but you could of course never be certain of privacy in a communal space.

The snake at the portrait let him in as before, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief as the door swung open and revealed an empty dorm. Dark as ever, walled in by the Lake that Harry had just left, it was a calming and oddly familiar atmosphere bearing in mind this was only his third ever visit.

Draco's bed on the far side was immaculately made as ever, but Harry was surprised to find that his own robes weren't where he'd left them after all. _This must mean Draco's touched them to put them away,_ he realised with an odd hot rush, and then rolled his eyes at himself. _Is that really all it takes for you now???_

But he didn't even look for the robes.

Instead, he stripped and slid under Draco's sheets, only shivering slightly as the familiar scent washed over him. It wasn't as strong as it had been last time he was there - but last time he'd been there he had been in Draco's arms, the other boy's flat stomach pushed up burningly against Harry's back, so it was no wonder really that the scent had been stronger.

In a series of beautiful snapshots, Harry pictured that night.

Draco's face above Harry's in the half-light, the opaline glow that reflected off their skin, those celestial grey eyes dancing with anticipation... it was haunting. His mouth had pushed so softly down on Harry's, spilling tenderness and sweet wine off his tongue like honey and rosehip, and Harry had one hell of a sweet tooth for it.

He realised suddenly that that was the only time he'd been allowed to watch Draco while they fucked, really watch him.

To watch the way his face contorted and let out those little electric hisses and moans, the way his eyes fluttered shut at some points, rolled back when it got to the end.

The way his tongue licked out over his lips before he could stop it, the way he bit down on it in raptures, the way his body rocked and trembled and surged, all of it was nothing short of magnetism. And Harry's heart broke that he might never have that connection again.

Draco was wonderful on ecstasy, Harry decided. He wondered what it would be like to have that all the time, the way they'd discussed that night. Delirious, he presumed.

But as it was, he knew he had to go without. " _I hurt you even when I'm not trying to_ ," Malfoy had told him that last night by the lake. Harry wasn't sure how hard Malfoy ever tried not to hurt him, exactly, but it was nice to pretend he did nonetheless.

He slept better that night than he had in weeks.


	27. An Exercise in Self Control

The first thing Draco wanted on his return to Hogwarts was ecstasy, sex, and a good fucking nap, in that order.

He'd had a rough couple of weeks at the Manor to say the least and had come back to school angry, touch starved, and (though he despised the word) horny. Where was Potter when you needed him? The git hadn't seemed happy to see him back for the Spring term, a fact which Draco deeply resented.

He was meant to fall to his knees immediately in delight upon Draco's return, and kiss the ground he walked on, or at least offer to suck his dick behind the broom sheds. Not bloody ignore his insults over the welcome feast, and refuse to sit by him in Astronomy again.

"What's the matter with you?" Draco hissed as Potter pulled his books over to a desk nearer the tower's windows. "Afraid I might finger you?"

But Potter didn't rise, which was beyond infuriating. Who did he think he was? He'd had two whole weeks to get over the incident with Weasel, and though Draco wasn't denying it was traumatic ( _I can't believe she actually touched me,_ he'd shuddered on more than one occasion), surely a saint like Potter could find it in his heart to forgive and forget?

By now, they were a week into term, and it was getting ridiculous. Draco hadn't relied on his own hand for relief so much in years, and he was getting extremely bored of it.

He thought about sleeping with someone else, anyone else, but it somehow didn't sit right in his mind. He hadn't been lying when he told Potter no one else satisfied him the same. _Bloody stupid git with his sexy bed-hair and his sexy voice and his sexy everything else. I despise him._

Their first Quidditch practice of the new term was a dark Thursday evening, and once again the Slytherin and Gryffindor slots overlapped, so Draco assumed he'd at least be in luck afterwards, like he normally was.

But Harry noticed the hungry look in Malfoy's eyes the second he came over to him after practice, soaked in sweat and radiating sexual frustration, and it was all he could do not to physically flinch away from him.

"I don't think I can do this," he said, and Malfoy's face fell.

"You're not still holding a grudge for the Weaslette incident, are you? Because Potter, I told you, it was non-consensual, she just went for my-"

"No, it's more than that," Harry shook his head. He wondered how to give his sadness words. Malfoy's eyes drank him thirstily up while he waited, almost primal in his need, and Harry could tell that once again their minds were speaking different languages.

"You left without saying goodbye," was all he managed. His voice cracked, and he knew he hadn't conveyed even a glimmer of what he'd wanted to say. He sounded pathetic, infantile, and Malfoy scoffed unsympathetically.

"Is that seriously what you've been so moody about?" he demanded. "That I didn't say _goodbye_ to you???"

Harry stayed quiet, but Malfoy only gathered momentum.

"What am I, your fucking _boyfriend_? Did you want a kiss bye-bye? Want me to tell you how I'd _miss_ you?"

By now the taller boy was leaning in very persuasively, Harry could almost feel his body heat, count his abs through his soaked down jersey, but he told himself he wouldn't give in.

He pressed a hand to his own stomach; he could feel his pulse there but willed it to slow. _Be still, my aching heart._

"I just expected to see you," Harry said in a hurt little voice. "And you didn't even write to me."

"Write?!" Malfoy's eyes were wide with indignation and surprise. "What the hell was I meant to write?"

"Anything!"

"All we do is fuck and argue!" Malfoy protested. "You wanted to read about me wanking over you on New Year's Eve, did you? Or about me thinking how much of a prick you are? Or about me staying high for days on end to avoid the fact that my parents are - are-"

He faltered, the first crack in his perfect façade.

"I couldn't have even held a quill, Potter, let alone used one," he said, his voice quieter now but still with the same unkind edge. "I didn't come down off the highs for so long."

Harry tugged his Quidditch robes around himself tighter to shield out the rough January wind. It was hard to believe that the ice in the air didn't come from Malfoy at times, he was so emotionally glacial. But he'd nearly confided in Harry, nearly slipped up - about his parents?

"What were you going to tell me?" he asked, keeping his voice soft in the hopes that Malfoy would let his guard down, be Draco again. "About why you had to stay high."

A guarded look came over Malfoy's face. "It's none of your business. I don't want to talk about it. Just- just let me in, okay? Get me out of my fucking mind, please.... please, Potter."

"I need comfort," Harry whispered.

"Yeah? Well, I need to come. Are we doing this, or not?"

Harry steeled himself and forced the words out, though they tasted like poison in his mouth. "We're not," he said.

It felt oddly good to say no. He'd never rejected Malfoy like this before, never wanted to. He wasn't even sure he wanted to now, with every nerve screaming at him with uncaged desire, but he had to admit there was a certain power to this kind of self control.

"We're not?" Malfoy repeated, a confused frown scribbling over his forehead. "Think you're too good for me now, is that it?"

"Do I think I'm too good for someone who won't so much as bid me goodbye when I won't see him for a fortnight?" Harry asked. "Er, yeah, just a bit."

"Such high standards," Malfoy's tone dripped with sarcasm.

Harry thought back to the past two lonely weeks without him, how desperate he'd been just to see Draco's face again. "You can have a kiss if you do it nicely," he heard himself say quietly.

Malfoy laughed. "What are we, twelve?"

But he closed the distance between their bodies, and placed a cold hand on the back of Harry's neck. He bent slightly and his other hand slid with purpose around to the back of Harry's leg, gripping it hard. "I'm just kissing you," he whispered. "Do you want me to?"

Harry nodded. Malfoy's fingers pressed harder into his skin; he lifted Harry's inner thigh up to press against his hip, and Harry's eyes widened. The two of them still weren't perfectly aligned, but the pressure was certainly there now, and it would begin to ache pretty soon.

"This is kissing," Draco murmured against his lips, barely brushing them with his own. "Do you want this?"

Harry felt his entire body tense up. God, yes, he wanted this. He nodded again, sighing shakily against Malfoy's mouth as the other boy's hips began to grind gently into his, keeping Harry close with a rough hand.

Then Malfoy bent his head down and kissed Harry hard, the way he used to, before the party, almost lashing him with the desperation of his tongue and the neediness of his lips. Harry felt a little of his soul tug away at the sensation - _he's doing it again_ , he thought.

"Stop, I- stop, please," Harry panted as Malfoy's hands slipped into his waistband, hard and persistent. At Harry's words he withdrew them with a frustrated growl, pushing away from him entirely to run his hands through his already messed-up hair.

"I just need to feel something, Potter," he whined, and Harry's eyes widened at the vulnerability he demonstrated. Was he actually _shaking_?

"What would happen if Daddy could see you now?" Harry asked, partly interested but mostly just trying to get a reaction. "Standing here begging a Half Blood boy to shag you - begging Voldemort's nemesis to shag you!"

He got his reaction- Malfoy's eyes narrowed with a menacing glare, and he pressed his chest up against Harry's again to force him to look up. "Keep my father's name out of your filthy mouth, you little bastard," he snapped, and Harry felt that surge of power again.

"If it's filthy," he replied with a hard stare, "It's only because you spend so much fucking time in there."


	28. Do Bad Boys Get Nice Things?

The boys didn't talk to each other for the next week, a torturous length of time to both of them in different ways, but as usual it was Harry who suffered the most.

He kept Draco's Christmas present under his bed, still in its brown paper with the little handwritten card attached, and now again he would pull it out to re read it and catalyse a fresh cycle of self-hatred. It wasn't particularly mushy - just 'D, Happy Christmas. H.' - but just the thought that Harry had wanted to give it to Malfoy embarrassed him now, made him feel weak and silly.

It had been mortifying enough when Malfoy found out Harry had been sleeping in his bed over the Christmas holidays - the telltale sign had obviously been that Malfoy's was the only unmade bed in the dorm, and besides, Harry had left more than one of his hoodies carelessly on the bedpost.

"It's perverted, Potter, honestly," Malfoy had glowered, making Harry wish the earth would swallow him up. "I mean, it's not like you didn't have your own bed! I don't see why you had to track grime and sweat into mine. I had to get the elves to put an early wash on."

"I said I'm sorry, alright?" Harry had replied, his cheeks raging red with embarrassment. "I felt lonely."

"Yeah? Next time you get lonely, why don't you contaminate someone else's bed?"

"I'll be sure to do that," Harry glared back. "I know where I'm not wanted."

"Do you, though?" Malfoy's gaze was impassive, spiteful. "I don't think you do."

Harry noticed the hunger underlying the menace in those grey eyes, and felt wretched to the pit of his stomach. It looked like even now Malfoy wanted him, and he was getting hard to resist.

His first mistake was agreeing to sit next to the blonde in that permanently-stuffy Astronomy classroom. Something about the atmosphere and the time of day always seemed to put Malfoy in the mood more than usual, so Harry really shouldn't have been surprised when a slender hand wandered onto his thigh under the desk.

Harry's breathing hitched in his throat, a reflex response to the touch, but he still mentally kicked himself for it. _He's done this before, and he only gets worse,_ he reminded himself. _Don't give him what he fucking wants._

But denying Draco Malfoy what he wanted was no small feat for anyone, especially when deep down it was everything Harry wanted too. He could feel himself responding uncontrollably quickly to the touch, and tried not to feel self-conscious about it.

"You are actually chronically horny," he hissed, and Malfoy sniggered.

"If you say so, Potter," he replied, aiming a sharp jab of his hand dangerously near to Harry's bollocks. Harry tensed immediately; he knew a threat when he felt one.

"Watch what you're bloody doing!" he said through gritted teeth, careful not to attract anyone else's attention with his tone. "Those are precious!"

"Oh, I'm watching," Malfoy assured him, sending a delicious shiver down Harry's spine.

***

"What the bloody hell was that for, you creep?" Harry snapped the second the boys were out of the classroom.

Malfoy shrugged, casual amusement evident on his face. "Fun?" he suggested.

"No, not fun, Malfoy," Harry glared. "A nuisance. You always wind me up, and use me for your own selfish gain, and embarrass me-"

"How am I using you?" Malfoy protested. "You make me sound like a fucking predator!"

Harry whistled out an angry sigh. Surely the boy couldn't be that blind? He wasn't stupid, that was certain, but maybe he was genuinely oblivious to the consequences of his actions.

He turned to the other boy, frustration furrowing his brow. "Do you have any idea why I don't want to hook up with you since you got back to school?" he demanded.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "It could be literally anything, Potter, but let me see. Is it because you're a massive virgin who's scared it's going to _hurt_ too much after a couple weeks without me? Or because I didn't write you a pretty little love letter over the holidays? Because your ex sexually assaulted me? Because I won't let you say you fucking _love_ me?"

He spat the word derisively, like it was dirty.

"Or maybe it's just because I hate you, you hate me, and you're trying to make me feel shit about all of the above?"

"You make it sound so simple, don't you, Malfoy?" Harry asked angrily. "Is that really how it is in your head? Is that how you see me and our situation?"

"How else could I see it? You haven't explained it any better than that, or given me reason to think anything else! I literally don't know what you want."

"I got you a fucking Christmas present," Harry blurted out, feeling shame rush to his cheeks at the admission. "And I wrote you a card, and that's where I was all day while you were in bed on your comedown. And I felt shit that day too, Malfoy, it wasn't just you."

He ran a hand through his hair. "But I got up and I went out in the cold and the rain, and I deliberated for ages but I bought you something, and you couldn't even be polite to me when I got back to find out you'd possibly shagged my ex."

"I didn't fucking touch her!" Malfoy yelped. "How many fucking times am I going to have to tell you this?"

"I know that now!" Harry snapped. "But that's exactly the point - you didn't tell me properly at the time, and you were laughing when you tried, so what else was I meant to think? You hurt me, Malfoy, not over Ginny, but over your reaction. And you were so spiteful to me too, when we were outside. Don't you remember?"

Draco did remember, and he regretted it. "I should've been better to you," he admitted reluctantly. "I should probably always have been better to you. It's just that most of the time you wind me up to the point of no fucking return, and I can't find it in me to be good."

 _This is one of those inexplicable sad things_ , Harry thought, willing his eyes not to well up behind his glasses. But that was a hard task when the boy that he loved was stood in front of him, literally saying he didn't want to treat him with anything other than disdain, and it hurt unimaginably much.

Malfoy had seen every part of Harry's body, felt every inch of his bare skin, and yet the only time Harry felt truly naked was when he stood in front of the other boy crying for him to love him.

"Can't you try?" he asked quietly. Malfoy didn't meet his eyes. That was answer enough.

"Where's this present of mine?" he asked gruffly after a second, and part of Harry was relieved by the change of topic.

"Under my bed," he said quietly. "I don't know if I really want to give it to you, though."

"What, Santa doesn't come to bad boys?" Malfoy asked, gliding his tongue over his lower lip seductively.

"How do you know what Santa is?" Harry asked, momentarily thrown.

"God, Potter, I did have to do _some_ work in Muggle Studies, you know," Malfoy sighed. "Now if you please, it's time for my presents. You can't blue-ball me by mentioning them and not giving them to me."

"Presents, plural?" Harry asked mockingly. Scorn was a good mask for the hurt that was still ricocheting through his veins, he realised.

"Fine, present singular," Malfoy acknowledged. He paused. "Look, Potter. I won't say anything vile for the rest of the night if you give it to me."

This was an offer too tempting for Harry to refuse.

"Fine then," he said reluctantly. "Up we go."


	29. Colours

Draco's slender fingers laced over the parcel on his knees, pulling the brown paper off with surprising gentleness. Harry forced himself to watch, though he found it immensely embarrassing to give presents to people and receive their thanks.

 _Slim chance of profuse thanks from Malfoy, at least,_ he thought wryly.

Brown paper aside, a box of glimmering paints fell into Draco's lap, and he couldn't repress the gasp that escaped his lips.

They were exquisite, presumably the best Harry could find, and each vial contained every hue imaginable.

"You can start using actual colour now," Harry said quietly as Malfoy turned the gift over in delicate hands. "They're enchanted to change to read you and fit your mood - thought it might save me from being a venting board for your frustrations a little more in the future."

Malfoy held back a cutting comment, remembering the promise he'd made to be nice. "Thank you, Potter," he said stiffly, the words foreign and sharp in his mouth. "I ... I like them very much."

Harry glowed. "Will you paint me with them, do you think?"

Malfoy looked away, staring intently at the kaleidoscope of colours. "I have something to tell you about that, actually," he said gruffly. "If we're doing gifts... you might as well see my sketchbook from over Christmas."

***

"I did write," Malfoy told Harry awkwardly as he slid the book out from under his pillow. "Just didn't send them. You can't read all of them, but I can show you some at least."

He fished out a few select pages - all of Harry, some more explicit than others, some of which had words attached, too.

The first that caught Harry's eye was a familiar scene, a skilfully captured snapshot of the event on the bank of the Black Lake, drawn out and re-imagined in lurid grey and black and indigo.

This time, Harry saw, as the images flickered and Malfoy's cursive writing captioned their movements, the blonde doesn't quite manage to leave the dark haired boy on his own in the rain with his heart falling out of the gaping hole in his chest.

He turns back, and they collide, those fragile boys who look too much like their Mothers and act too much like their Fathers.

Harry's heart lurched.

These are boys who have seen too much horror to ever sleep soundly again, boys who know death better than life; and the blonde crashes into the dark one by the lake and lets him wash all over him like the tide.

"That's how it should've happened," Malfoy breathed, and Harry melted into the offered kiss like it was the last he'd ever have.

"Why didn't it?" Harry asked when the kiss was broken. He wasn't quite brave enough to rest his forehead on Malfoy's, but he hoped one day he might be.

"You didn't ask me to stay," Malfoy replied quietly. "And besides, I was angry."

"Aren't you always angry?" Harry sighed.

"Pretty much, yeah. I'm fucked up like that."

Malfoy let the words hang in the air as reached into the left-hand pocket of his robes and drew out something small and coloured which Harry barely glimpsed before it was on the other boy's tongue, and then gone.

"What was that?" he asked curiously.

"A molly tab?" Malfoy replied, like it was obvious.

Harry's eyebrows shot up in shock, his mood completely killed, and he looked furtively around the empty dorm. "Malfoy, you cannot take ecstasy at half past fucking four in the afternoon!" he hissed.

"Why not?" Malfoy frowned. "I just wanted one. Got into more of a habit over the holidays, I'll admit."

"Do you - do you not realise how irresponsible that is?" Harry spluttered. "Do you have no sense of self-preservation?"

"Not really," Malfoy replied. He took his pictures back out of Harry's trembling hands before he could look at them properly, to Harry's mild irritation.

"Hadn't you better be going to Hall soon?" he asked lazily. "Obviously I'd rather you stayed, this is going to kick in relatively quickly and it tends to massively increase my sex drive, but I understand you may have other plans."

Harry's mouth fell fully open. He couldn't believe how casual the other boy was being. "What is actually wrong with you?" he asked, deadpan. "I can't tell how much of what you're saying is a joke right now."

"I'm not joking about any of it," Malfoy replied, nose crinkled in confusion. "What would I gain by joking?"

"You're unbelievable," Harry shook his head dazedly.

***

He didn't stay, but he couldn't get the image of Malfoy out of his mind as he ate, and was so distracted that he may as well have not been there.

Ron had to ask him four times to pass the pepper before he gave up and _Accio_ -ed it for himself, making sure the shaker clunked his friend's skull on the way past.

"Sometimes I swear you live in a different world, mate," he muttered.

"Sometimes I swear the same," Harry agreed.

The image was still in his head even when bedtime rolled around. Malfoy's skin, starkly pale against the pop of colour on his tongue, that beautiful vivid colour that would send the chemicals pouring through his bloodstream and transform him into that heavenly figure Harry had met at the Christmas party.

He thought about heading down to see him (he knew he'd be welcomed) but decided he didn't want to encourage the reckless behaviour. _If he wants to fuck up his life,_ Harry's mind insisted as he rolled over to sleep, _then that's a problem for him and his friends. Like he told me himself - I'm not his fucking boyfriend._

It was 4 in the morning when the pounding on the door began.


	30. Babysitting

Harry was instantly jolted from his dream by the noise, somehow immediately aware that the knocking was for him.

He grabbed a robe and some slippers, dashing briefly back for his wand to conjure a _Lumos_ , before opening the dormitory door to make the sound subside.

In the doorway stood a Slytherin he didn't know well, but recognised as Daphne Greengrass. "Hello?" he blinked uncertainly.

"Good, Potter, it's you." She rolled her eyes. "I thought I'd never say those words."

"What do you - is everything alright?" Harry asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Pansy sent me," Daphne replied. "Draco's being a prat on the Lake and keeps calling for you. Won't let anyone else take him home."

"Is he..." Harry's voice trailed off.

"High?" Daphne checked with another expressive roll of her eyes. Harry was beginning to find her attitude quite wearing; why were all Slytherins like this?

"Of course he's high," she was saying. "When is he not?"

"Fantastic."

There was a rude pause. "So are you coming, or what?"

Harry sighed. "I'm coming. Though I'm not sure what exactly I'll be able to do. He doesn't listen to me, either. He kind of follows his own laws, in case you hadn't noticed."

He followed Daphne's hurried steps down the winding staircases and corridors of the castle before slipping out of a side exit he hadn't known previously existed, which took them out right to the banks of the Black Lake.

Various Slytherins in Harry's year and the year above were scattered around the scene with bottles of Firewhiskey and suspicious-looking tiny bags of white powder in their hands, and several wands cast pretty colours into the night to illuminate the scene.

A clever Muffling charm had been cast around the far parameters of the grounds, so the blaring music was only audible once you got through the magical boundary, but after that point, God, it was loud enough to blow anyone right off their feet.

And there, at the centre of attention as ever, was Draco Malfoy, parading on the frozen part of the Lake as though it was a runway.

"He wouldn't come back with us," a tall boy that Harry recognised as Theodore Nott informed him, striding over, Pansy Parkinson glued to his side. "He kept yelling for you."

"Thanks," Harry nodded awkwardly, not sure why he was thanking the other boy. "Daphne said."

"Potter's here, Draco," Parkinson called, and the blonde's eyes visibly lit up from across the water.

She turned to Harry. "Keep him with you, will you, Potter? There's no controlling him at the best of times, but he's worse when he's high and he seems to have decided he wants you specifically."

Harry nodded. "Fine," he said reluctantly. "I'll Hex him if I have to."

"Can he stay with you till morning?" Pansy asked.

Harry got the impression she was palming Malfoy onto him rather like a mother dropping her hyperactive child with an underpaid babysitter, but again he nodded. It didn't feel like his own feelings really came into the matter.

"I bet you can't do this, Potter!" Malfoy called, attracting Harry's attention over the Lake before executing a moderately graceful spin on the ice. He let out a loud, exhilarated whoop, and as he spun nearer to the edge, Harry came close enough to see that the boy was injured.

There was blood on his knees, pissing through the material of his black trousers down to his ankles, and when he leaned over to kiss Harry, he saw there was still a little powder on his tongue, the residue from his bottle.

He hadn't even bothered to dissolve it properly.

"Are you still taking that shit?!" Harry asked in horror, swerving the kiss under the gaze of about a dozen watchful Slytherins.

"Only a little at a time," Malfoy replied vaguely, lunging again for Harry's face. "Just enough to keep me up."

"You're still going to be high for training at this rate!" Harry exclaimed. "Isn't it an early session? Flint'll kill you!"

Malfoy laughed, and cast a surprisingly decent Glamour over his eyes to make the pupils look normal.

He batted them down at Harry, who didn't think it was at all funny.

 _His constitution must be insanely powerful to process all this shit,_ he thought in a mix of wonder and horror. _He's been high all night now._

"You're a fucking mess, you know that?" he asked. "Do you have any idea how reckless you're being?"

"And you're fucking perfect, aren't you?" Malfoy beamed back. There was a fine line between sarcasm and sincerity, and Harry had no idea where that sentence fell on it.

He sighed, his breath making dragon clouds in the frosty air as he did so. "Are you coming inside?" he asked impatiently. "Because it's now-" he checked his watch- "Quarter to 5 in the morning. And I don't want to be here, but in some way that I don't quite understand, I'm responsible for you."

Malfoy grinned. "Do you have a more fun suggestion than this?" he asked, skidding on his cut knees in a way that made Harry wince just to see, though no indication of pain crossed Malfoy's face.

"I got the idea Pansy wants you to come and sleep in my bed," Harry suggested.

Surprisingly, it didn't seem to tempt the Slytherin the way he'd expected.

"Why?" Malfoy frowned. "I probably won't sleep anyway and this isn't exactly my first time getting high. I know what I'm doing."

"I know," Harry reassured him. He made his eyes pleading. "Can you just come with me, though? I'm really fucking cold and it's really fucking late and I'm going to lose my temper with you in a huge way if you carry on playing Angelina fucking Ballerina while I stand here."

"Is it not the best thing you've ever seen?" Draco asked, his eyes glinting silver in the moonlight.

"It's reckless and stupid," Harry replied firmly. "What if the ice cracks?"

He ignored the pretend hurt looks Malfoy threw his way. "You may well be manic and euphoric right now, and that's fun for you, but I'm sober and really exhausted and I don't want to come over there and fetch you like I'm your fucking dad, okay?"

"You could be my dad, if you wanted to," Malfoy smirked, and Harry's eyebrows raised. He knew exactly where this was going.

"Let's talk about that later, when we get you to bed," he insisted, keeping his tone kinder than he really felt so as to make Malfoy listen. "We can go to yours if you prefer, but we aren't having sex, I want to make that clear."

"We'll see," Malfoy replied, but Harry could tell he wasn't entirely serious. He stepped off the ice and onto the bank, much to Harry's relief, but when their hands brushed Harry could tell that the boy was freezing cold.

"How long have you been out here?" he asked, and Malfoy shrugged. He took a red lollipop out of his pocket, the same ones Harry had seen the last time he'd seen him high, and slipped it into his mouth to calm his grinding jaw.

"A while," he said thoughtfully. "Not long enough."


	31. Bloody Knees

Once inside, Harry made the executive decision to lead them both down to the Slytherin dormitories. Gryffindor seemed warmer in his mind, but he'd rather not attempt to sneak the ragingly high Slytherin into the lions' dorms at 5 in the morning and risk getting them both Hexed by Seamus or Ron, or both.

Better to crash in the basement where at least Malfoy was popular, and most people had apparently seen him in this state before, if Daphne Greengrass's description of events was anything to go by.

"Take your clothes off," Malfoy said as soon as they were through the dormitory door, making no effort to keep his voice down. Then again, louder, "Get your cock out."

"Malfoy!" Harry choked, slapping a hand over the other boy's mouth in the dark. "People are sleeping in here!"

"So?"

"So!" Harry racked his brain for a way to explain it to the colossal idiot at his side. "So, they don't want to hear you saying vulgar things like that, nor do they want to hear about me with my clothes off! I'm keeping them on, okay? And you're keeping yours on too. Though maybe I should take a look at those knees..."

He pushed Malfoy gently down onto the bed and crouched before him, ignoring the whispered comments about what Draco might like to happen next from this position. He rolled up the boy's sodden trouser legs, cast a quiet _Lumos_ , and surveyed the damage.

The cuts didn't appear too deep, more like grazes that had been irritated and re-opened over the course of the evening - _I wonder how that happened,_ Harry rolled his eyes, picturing Malfoy's antics skidding around on the ice.

There was a fair amount of blood, though, and Harry was sure it would smart in the morning. He wondered why he felt so close to the other boy, so suddenly relaxed around him. Because this was still Malfoy he was looking at, still the boy who loathed him and said the worst things he'd ever heard.

Yet perched on the bed in the light of Harry's wand, his eyes dilated and that dreamy look on his face, Malfoy seemed small, breakable. Not capable of the violence he'd exhibited in his life.

"Take your trousers off," Harry whispered softly, "Or do you need me to do it for you? The cuts aren't bad but they still need cleaning up or they'll get infected."

"You do it," came Malfoy's reply, and Harry could feel the smirk without lifting his wand to see it.

"You're more than capable," Harry rolled his eyes fondly, but his hands went diligently to the buckle of Draco's belt, undoing it with as much care as he could, keeping the operation clean and clinical and distinctly un-sexual.

Belt undone, Harry moved onto the zip, which took a couple of tugs but soon it was down and Malfoy lifted his body obediently to allow Harry to slide the material down from his hips.

"Can you grab me a Viagra from the drawer by my bed?" he asked thoughtfully, and Harry shot him an outraged glare in the dark, punctuated by a hard pinch on the thigh. All fondness dissipated instantly.

"I can't _believe_ you just fucking said that! Do I need to cast a Silencing charm?" he hissed. No reply. "Good."

With Malfoy dutifully silenced and intent on his lollipop once more, Harry focused his mind on cleaning the wounds on the boy's knees and shins, using what little Healer magic he knew.

It was rather satisfying to watch the blood cleanse away in great swathes and the little lacerations in the skin close up over themselves. It wasn't perfect, still patchy in some places and there'd definitely be bruising, but it was a start, and he was proud of his handiwork.

When he was finished, Harry placed a feather-light kiss over the freshly healed skin, slid into bed beside Malfoy, and breathed a tired sigh of relief. The quietness didn't last long, however, because Malfoy rolled over almost immediately to drape a leg over Harry's hips, pressing his mouth up to his ear to whisper all the things he'd like to do to him.

His lips crept down to suck and bite at the sensitive skin of Harry's throat in between sentences, a feeling which did nothing to make Harry want to stick to his idea of not having sex.

"Please don't," Harry whispered weakly, conjuring a light wall between them which Malfoy promptly broke down with his own wand.

"Why not?" he whispered back, his hand roaming dangerously low over Harry's stomach and causing at least one or two twitches. "You don't want me?"

Harry sighed. There was no point denying it, he knew Malfoy's hand could feel exactly the effect he was having on him. "You know I do."

He decided to clarify. "It just feels weird when you're so high and I'm not, like I'm taking advantage of you. I'm not sure if you can consent."

"Get high, then," was Malfoy's suggestion.

Harry couldn't think of anything more stupid.

"You're going to be so foul in a couple of hours when this wears off, aren't you?"

Malfoy sighed blissfully. "Not if I take more."

"Don't you dare, or I'll Hex you into next week," Harry snapped under his breath, his tone suddenly harsh. "I didn't ask to be woken up and to come and get you like this, alright? I didn't want to do it. I'd rather be in my own bed fast asleep right now, but I'm looking after you, because you're a moron. So don't take the piss. Just go to sleep, alright?"

"Ecstasy is a stimulant, Potter, I can't just sleep," came Malfoy's scathing reply. "I'm overstimulated."

"Try," Harry insisted in a whisper. "For me?"

The request seemed to actually work, as the only sound for a couple of minutes was the sound of their breathing before Harry broke the silence himself.

"Why did you call for me?" he asked, surprising himself with the boldness of his question. The words hung in the air, and he felt Malfoy prop himself up on an elbow to regard him with those beautiful dilated eyes in the dark.

"Why the fuck do you think?" he asked.


	32. Stolen Sketches

Harry decided it was sensible to wake up before Malfoy that morning (who had finally drifted off to sleep sometime around 6:30am) and intended to creep back to the Gryffindor dorms before he could be subjected to Draco's comedown temper.

He really had meant to leave. Truly. He could so easily have turned his back on the sleeping angel - no, devil by now - and headed safely up to his own bed in the Gryffindor dorms. At least, that's what he told himself later.

But some Slytherin instinct in Harry, the part recognised by the Sorting Hat in First Year, came over him and insisted it would be a good idea to sneak Malfoy's sketchbook out from its hiding place under the bed and have a quick peek at what he'd missed the last time. It had to be interesting; Malfoy was very defensive of it.

 _The pictures are mostly of you anyway_ , the snake in his head wheedled. _You have a right to know what he's drawn about you._

Harry gave in pretty quickly. He peeled the sheets tentatively back, keeping one watchful eye on the sleeping boy beside him, and then he was on his knees and fumbling under the oak slats of the bed for the precious leather book that contained access to Malfoy's mind.

Almost immediately, he realised why Malfoy hadn't wanted him to see all of it.

There was a little inscription on the first page that he opened, in Malfoy's looping script.

 _It's always him,_ he had written _. Why is it always him? Why can't I draw something else, think of something else? Even when something isn't about him, I make it so that it is. Everything I do comes back to him him him him him and my mind won't fucking stop-_

Harry's heart thudded in his ears. It was about him, he recognised that at once.

He recognised it, because right there on the page was a description of exactly how it felt for Harry to be in love with Draco Malfoy. _Even when something isn't about him, I make it so it is... it all comes back to him_ \- it was eerie to read Harry's own thoughts down on paper in his lover's words.

The first picture that caught his eye following the inscription was an intricate drawing of a hand. It was unmistakably Draco's own: those exquisite fingers had found their way to Harry's face and throat enough times for him to know it anywhere.

Besides, there were the rings.

Harry could see the real ones to the right of his head, discarded for the night on Malfoy's bedside table, but in the picture they were perfectly in place. The signet, the silver serpent, the jet stone, and the wide band with the Malfoy family motto looped around the inside - _Sanctimonia Vincent Semper_ \- Harry's skin had known them all by name for a while, and prickled at the sight of their reflections on the page.

And around the hand's crooked little finger, beneath the signet ring, was sketched a tiny body.

It was dark-haired and weak and wrapped round and round the finger, and as Harry watched, the body flailed wildly. It didn't take a genius to work the metaphor out.

 _Why doesn't he stop me from doing this?_ , Draco had written underneath it, in messier writing than his usual style.

Harry had an answer for that question, though Malfoy never liked to hear it. "It's because he fucking loves you, idiot," he whispered to the page.

The next picture was a kiss, raw energy radiating from the moving lines, and " _my mouth on his mouth, the language between us, and the choices I constantly make to protect the wall of my heart_ " was scribed over the rolling tongues.

Was it a caption? An afterthought? A diary entry? It was hard for Harry to tell, but it thrilled him either way, and he kept turning the pages to drink in each new confession, each new glorious image from Malfoy's brain.

There was plenty more of Harry, in colour this time as he moved towards the back of the book. Malfoy had evidently been employing the new paints Harry gave him, and Harry had to admit he'd made a good choice with them.

The hues were marvellously vibrant and swelled effortlessly over the parchment, revealing Harry's eyes, his scar, the spiral of his open mouth, his hands filled with opaline wine and fruits and tins of broom polish, and once, a beating heart.

 _This is what he looks like in the half light of my room_ , Malfoy had written under a particularly stirring image of Harry's bare skin. He'd sketched a lazily-thrown emerald sheet across his hips and most of his torso, but it was still unmistakably him.

_This is what he looks like when I've had him to myself for hours, monopolised him for a night again, done whatever I like to him. This is what he looks like when he tells me those words he keep saying though I beg him not to. I won't believe him, but he says it just the same._

_No other person in the world but me has seen him like this before, and I don't know when I'll see this sight again so I'm committing it to parchment. It hurts me to look at, which is how I know I've got it right._

Then there came a mess of charcoal, the emblem of a fractured mind, and finally an uncanny line drawing, a sketch of the Dark Mark beaming a grizzly grin out of a dark suit.

_There's catastrophe in my blood, doesn't he understand that? And it burns till I lash out._

As Harry leaned closer he realised that this rendition of the Mark looked quite humanlike, and then he saw the silver eyes gleamed out of the soulless mess of bones that counted for a face -

It was one of Malfoy's macabre self-portraits.

 _He's drawn himself as the fucking Mark,_ Harry realised with an awful jolt. His head swam and for a moment he thought he might throw up.

The portrait was truly clammy to look at with its eerie grin and its handless menace as its serpent tail coiled right up the page and wrapped around another person's throat.

Harry didn't care to examine the face of this 'other' too closely, too scared that he'd find his own features.

Just then, Malfoy's alarm spurted out of his wand on the bedside table, blaring red and loud, and Harry realised it must have been set for the Slytherin Quidditch practice. He froze, unable to react quickly enough to hide the book, horrified in the knowledge that he was about to be caught in the act.

Malfoy sat up as soon as the noise began, shutting it off with an irritable "Silencio", and made instant eye contact with Harry down the side of his bed. He took in the book, Harry's shaking hands, and the guilty expression on his face, and didn't think twice before landing a powerful slap on the other boy's cheek.

The crack of impact was so loud Harry felt it could be heard across the castle, but louder still was his pulse roaring in his ears, pumping humiliation and fear around his body.

"Your dirty Mudblood mother never tell you not to be a thieving arsehole before she snuffed it, then?" Malfoy asked viciously, wiping his hand on his sheets as though it was diseased from the contact with Harry's stinging face.

"I don't know," Harry responded, forcing himself to make eye contact, "Did yours never tell you not to hit like a little bitch?"

Malfoy put his rings on for the second slap, and Harry felt like he deserved that when it came.

"If you ever snoop around in my shit like that again I will happily set you on fire and warm my hands on the blaze, you revolting little scumbag," Malfoy told him, voice as even and calm as if he was merely mentioning the weather, or his impending Quidditch practice.

Harry knew that he meant those words, and bit back the bile in his throat. He wanted to apologise but it seemed a bit wet just to blurt it out, so he stayed kneeling at Malfoy's feet in stunned silence and shame, willing himself not to cry.

He watched as Malfoy picked up his kit bag from the other side of his bed, glanced disdainfully down at Harry as though he was considering kicking him, and then stalked from the room, anger rolling off him in tangible waves.

He wasted no time in rushing to Ron and Hermione.

***

"I just don't understand why you're surprised, Harry," Hermione was saying with a gentle rub of Harry's back. "I mean, Malfoy's always like this to you. You can't still be shocked every time he's a..."

"A colossal sweaty knob?" Ron offered.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Wasn't quite the description I was looking for, Ronald, but it'll do."

Harry frowned lightly. He should've known they wouldn't understand. How could they, when they'd never felt the balm of the other boy's kiss after days of enforced pain, like giving a cool draught of water to a parched man stranded in the desert?

How could they, when they would never see Malfoy so hot and messed up above them as Harry had had him, his beautiful aristocratic features contorted with heavenly exhilaration as his body made Harry see paradise, or the way he looked just as he was getting high, the way it softened those features and made them velvet again instead of ice?

The way he'd looked that time he apologised, so broken and young and still bewitchingly pretty, or those wild eyes flashing from across the ice as he skated the line between life and death like it was nothing.

Harry closed his eyes. _Malfoy's mouth .... scarlet with sugar, scarlet like his bleeding nose ... the way coloured lights refract off his skin and the way he lies so still in the dark-_

No, it was impossible. How could he explain that specific feeling?

He looked at his friends, two people who he loved deeply but who had just never had the taste of intoxication and rapture that Harry had experienced, never had whole art books dedicated to them ( _Why can't I draw some thing else? ... Everything I do comes back to him him him him him_ ) and flipped through to see their own marred-up souls staring back at them in glossy colour on each sacred page.

How do you try and explain what that's like?

"He sees me," he responded slightly weakly, still half lost in these precious visions.

"Mate, I can see you right now - So can anyone else who has eyes."

Harry should've known Ron wouldn't understand what he meant.

"Not like that," he shook his head. "We see each other differently. I can't explain it. He's like a different type of magic to me."


	33. The Letter

The following night, Harry's dreams took a darker turn.

_He was in a tunnel, long and oppressively dark with seemingly no end to it. He found himself walking, slowly at first, then faster, and by the time he was running, he became aware of something behind him. Something to run from._

_"Harry," it called in dulcet, soothing tones, like it was singing. "Come and kiss me again."_

_He'd know that voice anywhere, more so in his dreams._

_"Harry," called the voice again. Harry couldn't resist this time, and turned around slowly._

_And there he was, the most beautiful boy in the world. A halo-like light spilled down over his blonde head to illuminate his delicate features and cast shadows under his pretty eyelashes._

_"Are you high?" Harry asked breathlessly, and the vision shook his head. He had the ecstasy softness but his pupils were small, his silver eyes crystalline and sharp, so Harry believed him._

_He leant in for the kiss he craved, shuddering a breath against the other boy in anticipation before their mouths met, and it was delirious and soft and warm._

_"Do you love me, sweetheart?" dreamlike Malfoy breathed, and Harry nodded._

_"Yeah," he whispered back, before going to kiss him again - but Malfoy pulled back._

_"Say it," he insisted quietly. He tangled a suddenly thin and skeletal hand through Harry's hair. "Say it to me."_

_"I love you," Harry replied willingly, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against Malfoy's. Why was his skin so cold now? "I love everything that you are."_

_When he opened his eyes, Malfoy's own were gone, and in their place were wild empty sockets in his head, and his skin was melting away into hard, unfeeling bone._

_Harry watched in horror as serpentine coils erupted from every orifice on Malfoy's exposed skull, ripping from the neck of his dark suit - "Do you love me, sweetheart?" he rasped - and the halo was replaced with black ink that dripped like blood over the features of the boy Harry loved._

_"I do," Harry whispered, though he was fighting every urge in his body that screamed at him to run away again._

_"Do you love me now, Harry? Do you love me now, now, now?"_

Harry lurched forwards with the shock of waking up, adrenaline tearing his nerves to shreds.

He balled his fists and then forced his entire body to physically relax, an attempt to regulate his breathing.

"I wish I'd never seen that bloody picture," he swore under his breath. His heart was still thudding like it might shut down.

Harry glanced over at Ron's bed. It wasn't even 7 in the morning, so of course the other boy's drapes were firmly drawn around his bed. Harry decided to leave them that way, he didn't fancy getting Hexed.

Would Hermione be up, he wondered? She sometimes liked to wander to the library early in the morning for a slot before classes, it might be worth going to see her for some comfort.

One thing Harry was sure about either way was that he didn't want to sit with his own thoughts any longer, so he pulled his robes and slippers on without further thought, and padded out of the dorm and down towards the calming wooden arches of the library.

***

He breathed a sigh of relief the second he caught sight of Hermione's familiar curls in the corner of the room.

Her desk was bathed in the flickering yellow wash of a candle, it was still far too early in the morning to be naturally light, and there were several open books in front of her which she was referring to with intense focus.

"Harry!" she said, shutting the pages with a surprised snap as her friend dropped down next to her. "What are you doing up so early?"

"Weird dreams," he replied quietly. "About Malfoy."

Hermione sighed, resting her head against his chest. She could feel how hard his heart was beating, and her own heart hurt for him.

"You've got to stop letting him control you, Harry," she said. She was sick of saying it and hoped the frustration didn't leak into her tone. "He's so awful for you, and you just let him walk all over you."

"He's not that bad," Harry shook his head. "And I'm not exactly a good person myself."

Hermione turned her head to look up at Harry with pity. "You didn't always think that," she said quietly.

Harry wasn't sure what to say to that, but it hurt him to realise that she was right. He used to think he was a decent person - no, better, he was a really good person. What had Malfoy done to him?

"I read Draco's diary," he said suddenly, hot shame overwhelming him again.

Hermione looked at him in confusion. "Okay," she said slowly. "That's not great but reading a diary doesn't make you evil."

"It's not his diary, really," Harry clarified. "It's his art book, but he writes his thoughts in it too. And I read so many of them. He scared the hell out of me when he caught me."

He paused, thinking. "Maybe I should write him an apology letter."

"A letter?" Hermione repeated doubtfully. "Won't he just use it to mock you?"

Harry shrugged. "He uses everything to mock me, how badly can this one hurt?"

"Depends what you write!"

Fair point. Harry pulled out a Quill from his robe pocket and helped himself to a sheet of parchment from Hermione's stack, ignoring her protests.

Starting it was the hard part - should he say his name properly? 'Dear Malfoy' sounded a bit wooden. Though maybe 'dear' was a bit sentimental.

 _To_ _Draco_ , he opted for.

_Words cannot convey how sorry I am to have betrayed your trust in such a way as I did yesterday morning. I know it was a serious violation of your privacy, and I regret it enormously._

"Good start?" he asked Hermione. She peered over his shoulder.

"Don't make it too soft," she advised him cautiously. "Don't give him ammunition."

"If I give it to him myself then at least I know what I'm up against," Harry replied.

Hermione still looked doubtful. He sighed, ripped the page up, and tossed it into the bin.

"Fine."

_To Malfoy,_

_Sorry for reading your journal. I understand why you hit me for it-_

"He _hit_ you?!" Hermione asked, aghast. "What is wrong with the two of you that neither of you can process emotions in any way resembling normal?"

"Neither of us have decent father figures?" Harry suggested.

"You can't blame all the faults between the two of you on Daddy issues, Harry," Hermione told him, but she was smiling gently.

By the time Harry had written his apology it was light outside and time to head for breakfast, after a quick trip to the Owlery with the freshly inked parchment.

Harry wasn't sure exactly how much better he felt afterwards, but he was realising that he wanted to make amends with Malfoy whatever the cost. Anything was better than being ignored again.


	34. Icarus

Draco turned the piece of parchment over in his hands, replaying the message in his head. Potter, sorry? Potter, grovelling for forgiveness? Good. That was just the way Draco liked him.

He smiled to himself. Time to see how far Potter's remorse would go, and how much Draco could take advantage of it.

***

By the third midnight awakening of that week, Harry decided to just give Theo, Pansy, and Blaise the Gryffindor password so they could come and get him themselves whenever Malfoy caused a scene, without banging the door down and waking the entire dorm up.

So instead, "Potter, it's happened again," one of the Slytherins would whisper, shaking Harry's shoulder in the dark to wake him up.

And he would, he'd wake up, and he'd follow them yawning down the stairs, and he'd fetch Malfoy again and again and again. Sometimes he'd be lead to the woods or out to the lake, sometimes his job would be to coax the boy away from a fire, or down from the Astronomy Tower. Either way it was enormously draining.

Sometimes at least he'd get warning a few hours in advance, like the time over dinner in the Great Hall where Malfoy had stuck his tongue out with the coloured tablet on it, taunting Harry like a child from across the tables.

Harry had shot him the most dangerous warning glare he could muster, but the Slytherin swallowed the tab too fast, an insolent smirk on his face.

"My bed or yours when you come running to save me tonight?" he'd asked mockingly under his breath on his way past the Gryffindor table, and Harry seriously thought about slapping him.

His pulse roared under his skin, making it hard for him to think, let alone respond.

"My bed it is, then," Malfoy grinned.

"Malfoy, no, I-"

"People are looking, Potter, don't cause a scene," said Malfoy witheringly. "I'll see you tonight."

"But I-"

Malfoy leaned down and fastened his hand hard and tight around Harry's tie. "I said watch your tone, Half-Blood, and remember your place," he hissed. "There are plenty of other people who would love to clean me up, make an angel of me. You should feel privileged."

Most times when Harry came to pick him up, Malfoy would laugh and laugh till he was nearly sick on the grass and Harry would ignore him, just hoisting him up and leading him numbly down to his bed.

 _This is my love, now,_ he thought. _This is what we've become._

If Malfoy managed to fall asleep, that was the only time Harry could look at him without some part of him completely despising him.

Malfoy was the sun, he knew that, and Harry was Icarus, irresistibly drawn to his light without any sense of self preservation. So he put chains on his heart, chains of hatred and malice and fear, and those bound him to the ground, for which he was grateful.

If he was to be left to his own devices, Harry knew with total certainty that he'd find a way to entirely destroy himself with the other boy.

***

By a couple weeks of this chaos, Harry decided that it was high time (Malfoy laughed at the pun, though Harry found it less amusing) that the two of them did what he wanted for a change, and announced this thought to Malfoy one morning after a particularly hard and late night.

"Why don't you ask Zabini or Nott to take you back to bed when you take it too far?"

"Seems more appropriate to be you," Malfoy smirked. "Future saviour of the Wizarding World might as well be my saviour too."

Harry rolled his eyes. "What I'm really saying, Malfoy, is can you stop choosing me now? I'd rather not have any of you than have this."

They both knew he was lying, he went half insane whenever Malfoy ignored him. The drawing of himself wrapped round Malfoy's little finger sprang to mind, and he groaned inwardly.

"I'll always choose you, Potter," Malfoy replied slowly, and somehow he made even that phrase sound malicious. "Whether you choose me back or not. And there's nothing you can do about it."

Harry couldn't even find it in him to be angry about this. At least he got to be around the other boy, even if it made him fucking miserable.

"Could you maybe want to see me sometimes when you aren't high, or just wanting sex?" Harry asked in a quiet little voice, his eyes fixed on his own hands, which were twisting in his lap.

Malfoy thought about it, and his nose wrinkled in confusion. "For what?" he asked.

Harry looked at him, trying to get inside his mind. What was it Malfoy felt? Derision? Irritation? It couldn't be lack of attraction, he'd proved that countless times now. He always seemed to desire Harry, more than Harry even wanted him sometimes, which was crazy.

And this desire always arose at the worst and least appropriate times - Harry would be sat in Charms, doing nothing even remotely suggestive, and suddenly Malfoy would give him that pointed look and he'd have no choice but to leave with him-

No, it couldn't be lack of attraction. Maybe he's not capable of romantic feelings, though, Harry thought.

"For what?" Malfoy said again, more exasperated this time. "I don't know what you want, Potter."

Harry faltered. "I don't know either, I just want a little more. You take advantage of me so much because you know I really-" he stopped himself as he saw Malfoy's face screw up- "Fine, I really care about you. Is that ok to say?"

Malfoy shrugged. "You could always keep your feelings to yourself," he suggested, hopping out of Harry's bed to pull his robes on. The two of them had hardly slept apart all term.

Harry ignored this comment. "You take advantage of me because you know I can't tell you no," he continued. "And you never do anything for me in return."

"Think of something you want to do," Malfoy countered, sliding his rings onto his fingers, "And tell me. And I might think about it. Ok?"

It wasn't exactly enthusiasm, but Harry hadn't been shut down either, so he decided to take that as encouragement.

 _What should I suggest we do?,_ he wondered, stretching back on his pillows as Malfoy left the room. A formal date seemed too intense, so a trip to Hogsmeade was likely off the cards. He couldn't imagine the two of them getting dinner together, or even just drinks for some reason.

 _We'll start slow,_ Harry decided. _The way we should've done at the start._

He allowed himself to feel a ripple of excitement at the prospect. Did Malfoy realise that Harry would view whatever they did as a date?

As he planned the day, a small smile crept over Harry's lips. _It's a date,_ he thought _. I hope it changes things._


	35. The Date That Wasn't a Date

That next Saturday was a blazingly beautiful early Spring day, the sky a soft cornflower blue splashed with sunlight.

It was one of the odd occasions that Malfoy hadn't slept in Harry's bed or vice versa but Harry knew the other boy would be awake already for the Slytherin Quidditch practice, and he intended to sneak down and watch him for a bit before taking him off for the day to monopolise his attention.

It had been a good week since he told Malfoy he was taking him out - he hadn't been called once to pick the other boy up over the past three days, which he took to mean that Malfoy had been staying away from the drugs for once, and might not be in his usual state of going up or coming down.

"That's all I want from him," he'd told Ron and Hermione in a tearful confession one night. "I'm so sick of watching him come up and down, I want him level and stable for once."

As he dressed and then collected everything he needed for his plans, Harry hummed cheerfully to himself. It was going to be a good day.

***

When Harry got down to the viewing stands, the Slytherins were already on the pitch and practicing drills together. Malfoy clocked him immediately, and soared up effortlessly to hover by the stands.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Potter?" Malfoy hissed, ignoring Flint's heckles for him to come back.

"I'm allowed to watch my greatest Quidditch rival while he trains, aren't I?" Harry grinned innocently, lacing his hands behind his head and flexing. "Just getting some ideas, Malfoy. Don't let me distract you."

"Well, as a matter of fact, you are distracting me," Malfoy snapped. "I deeply resent the fact that you came here to perv on me, it is a violation of my human rights-"

"Malfoy!!!" Flint bellowed from the centre of the pitch. "If I have to come up there and drag you away myself, I'll Hex your fucking balls off! Don't test me!!"

Malfoy paled. "Don't fucking watch me, Potter," he snapped, before wheeling round and heading reluctantly down to his captain for an angry lecture.

But Harry did watch him, and he did so with great pleasure. Despite his complaints, Malfoy was playing extremely well that morning. Harry was reminded again what an excellent Seeker the boy was, and how much difficulty he'd have keeping up with him at the next game. Why was it that these difficult feelings made Malfoy such a great player, and made Harry so much worse?

***

"You're still here," Malfoy glared when he emerged from the changing rooms, looking delightfully ruffled-up in the way that Harry liked him best.

"Yes," smiled Harry sweetly. "Today is the day we get to do what I want."

Malfoy's eyes widened. "I told you to give me time to think about that!" he protested. "Not just spring it on me!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Ok, drama queen. If I asked, we both know you'd say no. So I'm telling you: this is the schedule for your day. You're spending it with me, and you're not getting high, and you're going to be nice to me."

"You can't control me," Malfoy snapped. "I'll come with you but if I want to get high I will, and if I want to be mean to you I will."

"Merlin, Malfoy, give it a fucking rest!" Harry laughed exasperatedly. "It's one day of your life, ok? And I'm not going to do anything terrible."

Malfoy surveyed Harry doubtfully. "Should I get changed?" he asked.

"We aren't even leaving the castle," Harry replied. "I'd say you're more than great as you are."

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Fine. You have until sundown to do whatever you want. But I can't promise I'll like it."

"Ok, you absolute misery," Harry rolled his eyes back. "The first thing I want is for you to fucking lighten up. But failing that - I brought you an apple pie from breakfast because I imagine you're hungry, and we're going to go and study together by the lake."

"Study together?" Malfoy repeated incredulously, though he accepted the breakfast offering with haste. "That's what you want to do??"

"Yes," said Harry simply. "You keep selfishly dragging me out of classes or making me miss them entirely, and taking all my attention away from my work outside of lessons too, so today you and I are going to catch up."

Malfoy didn't seem convinced, though he also looked far less apprehensive than before.

"I'll make it worth your while if you're nice to me," Harry insisted. "And besides, studying is something I like to do with my friends. And I'd like to be more like friends with you, if we can't be anything else. Just - come with me. Please?"

Malfoy considered the offer for a moment, frowning. He felt like he'd been rather pushed into this, but Potter was right - they were both behind on their studies. It was a beautiful day, he didn't have other plans, and he liked the idea of having it "made worth his while".

"Fine," he sighed. "Just for a day."

***

Draco stretched out on his back and laced his hands behind his head, exhausted by the effort of so much reading and writing.

Potter had led him to a spot by the Lake, a beautiful little hidden patch of meadow that Draco hadn't known previously existed, and set out ink, Quills, textbooks and parchment for each of them. _Of course he's prepared,_ Draco had thought scornfully to himself. _He probably had wet dreams about this little study session all week._

The wildflowers were delicate and softly colourful, bluebells and violets and snowdrops, and the pages in front of the boys were filled with lines and lines of ink on the Wolfsbane potion, the _Inanimagus_ spell, and the merits of non-verbal magic.

"When was the last time you were high?" Potter asked abruptly, and Draco frowned at the intrusion.

"I finished coming down yesterday. So I guess just under a week ago?" he responded. That was his best guess.

"Do you think you could ... go without it for a bit now?" Potter sounded almost timid, shy, words Draco would never normally associate with the boy.

He thought about the request. "Why do you ask?"

The dark-haired boy shrugged, laying down his Quill. "It would be nice for me to sleep at night without worrying about you," he said quietly. "I like you better when you're like this, you're more you."

"I like me much better when I'm high," Draco smiled ruefully. "I like you better when I'm high, too."

Potter looked a little hurt, and Draco felt a little twist of remorse in his stomach.

"Come here," he whispered, and the other boy came to lay uncertainly down next to him. They turned so they were facing each other, and drank in the other's features for a second.

Malfoy's proximity made the little hairs on Harry's arms stand up, as if they were pulling him towards him by the follicles. _Are his up too?_ he wondered. _It feels like I'm touching him._

Malfoy reached up firmly but gently, cupped Harry's chin, and then kissed him with soft but deliberate intent.

The scent of the wildflowers and the light of the early spring sun washed over them as they kissed side by side, and after a minute Malfoy pushed Harry onto his back - not roughly like usual, but as though he was precious - and Harry allowed himself to be pressed blissfully into the warm grass under the weight of the other boy's body.

He allowed Malfoy to kiss him, to slip his hands up his robe. Allowed him to slide off the frustrating material that kept their bodies apart where the heat was most intense.

"Can I?" he whispered, and Harry nodded.

They hadn't done it like this in a while, so Harry was surprised at how quickly his body relaxed into the pressure as Malfoy slid inside him, and how little it hurt.

Recently if they slept together it was more frantic, hungrier, a way to distract Malfoy from his comedown, but this? This was tender, this was gentle. It felt like love.

Yet it wasn't gentle in the way it was when he was high. Draco seemed present and more aware of his surroundings, and enthusiastic too.

"There's a good boy," he breathed in Harry's ear as the pace picked up.

Harry was extremely grateful for the spot he'd chosen for their date-that-wasn't-a-date that afternoon. A solid line of trees arched around the two of them in a crescent, protecting them from the view of the castle, though there was still the illicit thrill that if anyone was on the Lake, they'd be seen quite quickly.

"I love this," Harry rasped, voice strained from focus and pleasure. "I love what you do to me. I love watching your face screw up above mine. I love the way your hair falls in your face-"

He wanted to see how many different ways he could tell Malfoy he loved him without actually saying the forbidden three words, and he seemed to be doing quite well.

It became clear that the end was nearing.

"Are you close?" he asked.

Malfoy's eyes were wide, his breath loud. "Yeah," he gasped. "Can I-?"

Harry pretended to think about it, though it was a struggle to act casual when his mind was being slowly blown.

"Potter, I don't have long, stop playing fucking games!" Malfoy choked. "I'm- Potter, please-"

"I'm not stopping you."

Harry grinned as Malfoy collapsed on his chest with a drawn-out groan.

"Do you feel better now?" he asked sweetly.

"Much better, you teasing bastard," Malfoy replied with a glare.

Harry sighed lazily, and stretched out on the grass as Malfoy rolled off him and got to cleaning up. "This has been a good date so far, hasn't it?" he asked happily.

"Not a date," Malfoy corrected him. "A study session."

"Oh yeah, the studying was the most memorable and important part for me too!" Harry rolled his eyes. "Wanker."

"Dickhead."

"Darling."

"Potter."


	36. He's My Ecstasy

The two boys lay there side by side in the grass for a while, fully dressed again but more than slightly rumpled up, watching the clouds drift blissfully over their heads.

Harry's head was dangerously close to Malfoy's shoulder, their hips and waists and ribs aligned so perfectly it seemed criminal not to touch, their hands just heartbeats apart - but they didn't touch. Not yet.

There was a light breeze in the air which ruffled the wildflowers and sent a heavenly sweet scent over the scene, and birds could be heard singing softly in the trees above. A small shade was cast in a diagonal blanket over their bodies, and it was cooling and calm.

"This is a good spot," Malfoy admitted quietly, taking in the elements. "And it's ... it's a good day. I didn't think I could have those any more."

Harry's eyes pricked with tears of sympathy. "You should always have good days," he whispered.

 _I love you, you sad, broken mess of a person,_ his brain added belligerently _. I love you so much I forget to breathe. I want to give you all the good days in the world._

"I want my art stuff," Malfoy announced after a second, staring at Harry with a strange expression. "I don't want to talk about what you've seen in the book, but I - I can't just not draw you, the way you look right now."

Harry's heart fluttered. "How do I look?" he mumbled, slightly scared of what he might hear in the answer. _Please don't hurt my feelings._

Malfoy paused. He wondered if he should tell Harry the truth.

 _You look perfect,_ he thought _, you look like hope, or at least you could do, if you weren't so blurred by whatever it is in my fucking brain that wants to hate you so badly._

_You look like all the words my tongue doesn't know, the ones my ears won't let me recognise in your voice, though my heart knows the truth in them so well._

_You look like something I'd die for._

But he didn't quite manage to say that. Instead, "You look sun-strewn," he replied quietly. "And vulnerable. You look like you shouldn't be looked at, like it would hurt if I did for too long. You look like you've just been fucked, and like you liked it. You look like ... you look like someone who wants to save me."

"I am that person," Harry whispered. "And you know what I think, don't you?"

Malfoy nodded awkwardly. "I don't want you to say it, though."

An uncomfortable silence ensued, the unsaid three words ringing in the air like a chapel bell. _I love you, I love you, I love you._

Harry cleared his throat. "Those paints, then," he offered, an attempt to move on from the awkwardness.

Malfoy nodded. " _Accio paints, Accio brushes, Accio art book,_ " he said, not meeting Harry's gaze.

As soon as the items landed in his lap, he opened the book roughly to find a clean page, and began to sketch. Quick, fluid lines over the paper, only glancing up now and again to capture the thoughts on Harry's face.

Harry watched in awe as his own image began to reflect back at him off the page.

"Is that really what I look like?" he asked.

Malfoy ignored him for a second, his hand moving faster.

Then, "It's similar," he responded. "I can never capture much of you. But I get the sense."

"Are you going to write on this one?"

"That's none of your business." Cold, closed off again. Harry could tell he'd gone too far.

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

This particular picture of Harry was drawn with less heavy strokes than usual, that was the first thing he noticed.

The colour was the second.

The Charmed paints he'd bought for Malfoy were evidently recognising the gentleness in his feelings at the moment rather than the usual rage, and this was reflected in the subconscious splash of sea greens and pearly blues they produced on the page, mingled in with the odd blush of pink.

Harry had never seen himself in such a light before. It was bewitchingly pretty.

"Give me another kiss," he whispered, a rush of affection and admiration overwhelming him.

"I'm busy," Malfoy shook his head.

"What, you can't kiss and draw at the same time?" Harry asked cheekily.

Malfoy sighed loudly. "Why do you insist on bothering me when I've told you I'm busy?"

"It's my special day," Harry pouted, and with that Malfoy gave in, leaned over, and kissed him hard. _If only to shut him up,_ he thought.

But as he leaned in, Malfoy left his brush pressed to the parchment, and on the corner of the page, bolts of lightning appeared to shoot out from the tip. Radiant colour spilled over the book, vibrant hues that felt oddly familiar to Harry, and when he saw them down on paper his mouth fell open.

"The paint- it's reading you!" he gasped. "Malfoy! I think I know that feeling!"

The other boy blushed darkly at the sight. "That doesn't... I don't know what that means," he insisted.

"Yes, you do!" Harry protested. "You know it's Charmed to pick up on your emotions, help with your self expression. And look what it's expressed! Don't you see?"

Malfoy glared down at the incriminating page, boldly bright against his feigned indifference. Evidence of his feelings for Potter, evidence of the effect he could have on him.

"It's just colour," he shrugged. "It could mean anything. Don't get so ahead of yourself. I bet it's just a response to a kiss, anyway - if I was to kiss Pansy later it'd show the same thing."

"Oh, that's an option, then, is it?" Harry snapped, irritated now. "And kissing me is the same to you as kissing Pansy?"

He didn't want this to spiral into the usual argument and ruin the lovely day, but still, he was annoyed.

"If you think Pansy can do as good a job of you as I can, then by all means go and fuck your best friend," he continued hotly. "As you keep constantly reminding me, Malfoy, I'm not your boyfriend and I have no claim to you whatsoever. You're perfectly entitled to kiss whoever you like-"

Harry's rant was stopped by the feeling of warm lips pressing against his, and slowly he relaxed against them.

"I am entitled to kiss whoever I like, you're right," Malfoy whispered, leaning his forehead against Harry's in a way he'd always wanted him to. "And who I like - against my will - is you."

***

Later that night, while Malfoy slept soundly beside him (quiet, freshly showered, and warm), Harry's mind drifted back to the vivid colours that had spilt on the page when the two of them kissed earlier.

Why had he recognised the feeling so instantly, the second he saw the colours? Where had he seen them before?

Then it hit him, all at once, like an electric shock.

Ecstasy.

Harry knew those colours and that feeling, because that's what ecstasy had done to him when he took it at the Slytherin Midwinter party.

There was no way Malfoy had been actually high today - he was lucid, present, and seemed every inch his authentic self. He certainly hadn't struggled with getting it up. And besides, Harry knew he would've seen him sneaking a tab or a line if the occasion had arisen.

But the colours meant something must have had that effect on him.

So no, he realised, it hadn't been ecstasy in Malfoy's system.

It had been Harry.


	37. Two Good Days

The next morning, a clear March Sunday, marked two weeks since Draco had last been high, and he woke up with a feeling of confusion and fatigue, but also a little bit of pride.

He hadn't shared with Harry how gruelling it would be to fulfil his request and stay away from drugs when his body craved the high so badly, but he was doing his best. And two weeks was a little milestone for sure.

Draco sat up, ran his hands over his legs in Potter's red sheets, and yawned. It hadn't even been a question the night before as to whether they were sleeping together, it just seemed the most natural thing to do.

Though Draco realised, thinking back, that it might have been the first time they'd gone to bed together when they'd both been sober, and not purely aiming to have sex. He'd slept well at least, so that was one good thing. He wondered if Potter had plans for the day - the boy could be surprisingly good company even when Draco was sober. Not that he'd admit that.

Harry appeared to notice for himself that something was on Malfoy's mind as soon as he woke up and saw him there.

"Withdrawal." Malfoy answered his question before it was even asked. "Detoxing is really hard."

Harry nodded sympathetically. "Want a distraction?" he offered.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow suggestively. "Well, if you're offering..."

"Not like that, you sex pest! I meant breakfast! God, when are you ever not horny?"

"It's rare," Malfoy conceded.

He swung his legs out of bed and dressed quickly alongside Harry, ignoring the stares from the other Gryffindor boys, and then headed down to breakfast.

On the way, however, they were cornered by Blaise, who grabbed Harry with surprising urgency and pulled him aside.

"You go ahead, Draco," he said in a casual tone. "It's Potter I need to talk to..."

***

Harry sat down at the Gryffindor table with Ron and Hermione, dazed and slightly shaken by Blaise's warning. He saw Malfoy stiffen over at the Slytherin table with the realisation that Harry wasn't joining him - was he hurt? Or just irritated?

One glance at Blaise's firmly set lips made it clear he wasn't going to tell Malfoy what they'd just discussed, though, and Harry felt relieved. That was the last thing the other boy needed to hear, when it seemed he was doing so well.

He helped himself to hot food and juice from the centre of the table, batted away his friends' irritable questions about where he'd been the day before, and chewed thoughtfully.

_"A good day," Malfoy had said to him yesterday by the lake. "I didn't think I had those any more."_

The rawness and vulnerability of that confession made Harry feel like crying, and the sudden memory was enough for him to make up his mind and stride over the prettiest blonde at the Slytherin table.

"How about two good days, Malfoy?" he asked, his voice low but confident.

Malfoy turned to look up at him, something hopeful flickering in his grey eyes, a look that Harry hadn't seen there before. The Slytherins were staring too; it seemed the fascination with the pair of them hadn't faded much over time.

"I get another?" Malfoy asked quietly.

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "Meet me at the Lake when you're done. Usual place."

He liked the thought that they had a usual place, even though they'd only been there once together. Still, it was a place only the two of them knew, a place where only the two of them existed. Their usual place.

***

Malfoy didn't take long to join Harry in the meadow spot by the Lake.

"What are we doing today?" he asked.

Harry was amazed at the transformation in front of him. In the past days since he'd stopped getting high, Malfoy seemed more present and lucid, and far less cruel too. He seemed to accept Harry as, what? A friend, maybe? At the very least, a companion.

After the hell of the past few months, Harry would take the title of "companion" with more than approval.

"I thought maybe you might want a way to get a thrill without scrambling your brain with all the fucking molly you take," Harry said wryly. "Fancy a dip?"

Malfoy blinked at him. "I didn't bring swim stuff. I don't own swim stuff."

Harry smirked. "Neither did I. But it's not exactly like I haven't seen it before, is it?"

Without any further thought, he reached and tore his robes off with wilful abandon, then leapt into the Lake with a loud holler. Malfoy watched on in amazement.

"Gryffindors are the fucking weirdest creatures on earth," he whispered, mesmerised.

"Come in!" Harry gasped, spluttering a little as he bobbed around in the water. "It's lovely and warm!"

"Liar!" Malfoy called back with an eye roll. "It's _March_ , Potter. I can see your bollocks turning blue."

"Don't be such a coward!" Harry laughed. "I should've known you'd wimp out. Come and get your non drug-related thrill. It's good for you!"

"Fuck you, Potter," Malfoy snapped, but he pulled his robes off his shoulders, and let them fall to the grass. Then he kicked off his shoes, unbuckled his belt, wriggled out of his trousers, and off came his shirt, socks, boxers, and finally his rings.

It seemed it was his turn to be unable to say no to the other boy.

Harry whooped ecstatically as the blonde landed in the freezing water beside him with a splash.

"Fuck ME, it's cold!" Malfoy yelled, and they both gasped with laughter, shaking with the shock of the water.

"Feels good though, doesn't it?" Harry asked breathlessly. "Hope you're glad I suggested it."

Draco was surprised to find that it did feel good, and he was glad.

The blood was roaring through his body, his lungs were heaving in the fresh air, Potter was beside him laughing that gorgeous wide open-mouthed laugh of his, and Draco had never felt more alive. He couldn't believe the luxury of having two good days.

 _Adrenaline is a hell of a drug,_ he thought.

***

Harry replayed the conversation he'd had with Blaise that morning as he watched Malfoy in the water.

"How's Draco?" Blaise had begun, straight to the point.

"He's good," Harry had smiled back, and he really meant it. "He's been really great compared to how he was before. He's not been high in two weeks now, so-"

"This is what I feared," Blaise shook his head.

Harry frowned, confused. "This is a bad thing? I just told you, he's happy."

"This is just the momentary good bit before a fall," Blaise said quietly. "Don't get too attached to this version of him, Potter, alright?"

Harry shook his head. "No, he seems genuinely good right now and he's been like this for a while - I was with him all day yesterday, he said we had a good day-"

"That's great, Potter. but he's ill," Blaise sighed. "You have to remember that addiction is a disease. And he can't get really happy naturally any more, not the same way as you or I can. Why do you think he wants to have sex all the time?? Sure, he's a teenage boy, but he's a teenage boy with an ecstasy addiction. He's constantly craving serotonin."

Harry chewed his lip, worried now but trying not to believe the pessimism in the other boy's voice.

"The receptors in Draco's brain are damaged from months of constant serotonin stimulation," Blaise continued, "And it'll take a while, but they will come back. But you know Draco."

Harry nodded. "Yeah- what's your point? If they'll come back, it's just a matter of time, he'll be fine again in what- a couple months?"

"Could be years," Blaise told him firmly. "He could be permanently damaged. But either way even if it's fixable, Draco won't be able to wait that long- you know, long enough for his brain to make those happiness chemicals naturally again. It takes self control, which you know he has in buckets, but it also takes the desire to stop."

"And he doesn't have enough of that," Harry realised slowly, a sinking feeling growing in his stomach.

"Exactly," Blaise sighed. "His brain doesn't work that way. So in the meantime he'll give in and take the ecstasy again, because he can't help it. Because that's what addicts do. It's only a matter of time."

"I do sort of wonder if you're being unfair to him," Harry protested, but Blaise cut him off.

"No, I'm just being realistic," he said, and his time was resigned. Final. "He's done it before, OK? I've seen it. And you should know, it's ... it's always worse on a relapse. He can be quite dramatic."

He raised his hands defensively, as though Harry was about to argue with the statement.

"Look, Potter, I'm just warning you so you know to expect it. Alright?"

"He's strong," Harry insisted. "I believe in him."

"You shouldn't. He's going to hurt you."

***

When Harry woke up that night, it was to the familiar sound of pounding on the Gryffindor dorm door. He hadn't given the latest password to the Slytherins, blindly assuming Malfoy wouldn't need him like that again for a while at least.

But Pansy was there, and she sounded hysterical. And the space beside Harry where Draco had lain was long cold.

"It's Draco," Pansy gasped as soon as Harry opened the door to her. Real terror was ripped across her face. "He's in the fucking Lake!"

And Harry screamed.


	38. Saving Draco

Harry had never run so fast in his life as he did down those stairs and out of the castle, not caring how far behind him Pansy was as long as he could get to the Lake. He knew the way, and he knew what he'd find.

It was the screams that alerted him before he actually saw the accident, though. Terrible, awful screams of genuine fear, screams that twisted Harry's stomach to the point where he threw up a little in his mouth.

A large fire was flickering on a makeshift log pile on the far side of the Lake, and a few feet away Blaise and Theo and some other Slytherin boys could be seen dragging Malfoy's limp body out of the water and over the edge where the surface had iced up in the night.

"Draco!" Harry roared, and several heads flicked immediately towards him, though not the one he wanted. That one was still and limp and grey.

Theo's wand was out now, and he was aiming spell after spell at the centre of Malfoy's chest to shock him awake, and Blaise was bent over his body, his hands pressed over the boy's heart. He pushed down hard again and again and again, yelling "Come on, Draco, fucking come _on_!" in a voice torn and cracked with anguish.

Harry skidded down on the hard earth beside the boy he loved and knelt by Blaise, adding his own hands to the pressure on Malfoy's chest.

"He has to breathe, Potter, do you know how to make him breathe?!" Blaise asked as they pushed, his eyes wide with panic.

Harry nodded, and as Theo shot another bolt of light into the still chest, he leant over and pressed his mouth over Draco's.

And he breathed for him.

"Come on, you fucking moron," he snarled as he came up to take another breath before going back down again. "Breathe, it's not that fucking hard. Breathe. BREATHE, goddamn you!"

A dozen compressions that felt like thousands passed, a dozen breaths too, and then suddenly the frozen boy's body shuddered back to life and he coughed up what looked like buckets of tar-black water.

Harry collapsed onto his chest, not caring if it hurt the other boy, just overwhelmed with his own misery.

"I'm so fucking mad at you," he wept. He could hear Pansy still sobbing too, and a flurry of general panic around them, but he ignored it all. The only thing he cared about was the half dead boy in his arms, and the feeling of nearly losing him.

"I know you are," Malfoy rasped, black Lake water dribbling out of his mouth. He coughed and retched to force it out faster, wincing as he did so. "This burns."

" _Good_ ," Harry sniffed. "You're a moron and you deserve to feel pain for what you've done. Because I know this wasn't an accident, whatever you say."

He looked around at the gaggle of panicked Slytherins above them. "Would anyone like to prove me wrong? Say he hasn't been high, and he- what, slipped?"

Silence.

Harry nodded. "That's what I thought."

"He was in the fire first," Pansy whispered, tears dripping from her face to the earth with alarming speed. "He lit his hair on fire and then he leapt in the Lake to cool off. He was so high and out of control."

As Harry looked closer he could see there was still soot staining Malfoy's perfect blonde hair, and with that he completely lost it.

"How could you be so _fucking_ reckless?!" he bellowed, and Malfoy cowered away from him into the ground. "You stupid, _stupid_ prick!"

"Easy, Potter," Theo tried, but Harry shook his hand aggressively off his arm.

"This _is_ me taking it easy!" he yelled. "You have no idea how badly I want to punch his stupid fucking lights out right now!"

Malfoy's face screwed up painfully. He still had that high sort of glow about him, Harry could see that now, but he was clearly not having a good time with it.

"What if I hadn't been able to come this time?" Harry demanded, rounding back to the boy on the floor. "What if your friends hadn't noticed? Where will you be next time, you fucking moron, will you be face up on the other side of the ice? Or will you stay in the fire?"

"He needs to get to the hospital wing," Pansy realised as Draco began to shake uncontrollably. They'd all been so caught up in the moment that they hadn't even remembered how much care Malfoy would need after nearly drowning, and were shocked to realise it then as she spoke.

"No!" Malfoy rasped, showing the most emotion he'd shown since coming round. "Not the hospital!"

"Are you actually fucking delirious?" Pansy demanded. "Potter, give him your robe, he's going to get hypothermia."

Harry cast his robe off willingly, and his shirt as an afterthought, draping both over Malfoy's ice-cold frame. Theo and Blaise followed suit, shivering, as did several other Slytherins, and soon he was swaddled like a child.

"This isn't enough for very long, he needs actual Healing," Pansy said, "Who knows what damage he might have done to himself?"

"Not the hospital," Draco croaked again. "They'll take my...." he coughed repulsively. "They'll take my drugs away from me and they'll tell my father."

"Shut the fuck up," Harry said, and with difficulty he forced his arms under Malfoy's body to haul him up to his chest. Theo supported him most of the way up, taking a good third of the burden, and despite the blonde's scratchy-voiced protests, the crowd began their odd procession up to the hospital wing.

"Blaise, take any pills or powder from his pockets," Harry suggested tiredly as he heaved his love up the steps.

Malfoy didn't even bother to protest this time. "I can get more," he croaked, and Harry hated him for that.

Blaise produced only a single small bag from Draco's trouser pocket, which he deftly slipped into his own.

 _For fuck's sake_ , Harry thought. _How's he meant to get better when you're all at it?_

"I've got him from here, guys," he sighed once the group were through the doors. "Thanks for the help, Theo-"

He shifted Malfoy's body to a standing position, though he kept his arms firmly supporting the other boy. Draco's arms clutched round Harry's neck like his life depended on him, which perhaps it did.

"Are you sure, Potter?" Blaise asked uncertainly. "We can help you, you don't have to take him alone."

"I'm sure," said Harry firmly. "You should all get to bed. I have a few words to say to him privately anyway, before he sees Pomfrey. Come and check on him in the morning."

"I think I will check on him, yeah," Blaise nodded, eyeing the two of them warily. "If only to make sure you haven't bloody murdered him, the way you were talking to him tonight. _God_ , you two are fucked up."

Harry didn't know what to say to that, but he watched the Slytherins traipse off quietly to their dorms, then steeled himself to bear Malfoy's weight to Madam Pomfrey.

"I still might murder you, you know," he said reproachfully as they walked, "I don't think you realise what you've done. I fucking told Blaise you were doing great and he warned me this would happen, I didn't listen but he still warned me you'd ruin everything like you always bloody do-"

"Don't give up on me," Malfoy choked, and Harry realised with horror that he was suddenly crying. "I'm better, I'm getting better, I promise."

But Harry knew about the red sugar stain on Malfoy's tongue, the huge dark holes of his pupils beneath his fluttering eyelids, the black water in his lungs, and the burnt soot that not even the Lake could take out of his hair.

That didn't look much like "getting better".

"Stop doing this to me," he replied. "You have to stop this. It's hurting."

Malfoy spat out a loud lungful of water onto the flagstones and retched, stopped in his tracks for a second. "Do you think it doesn't hurt me too?" he asked nastily when he could speak again.

"But you call the shots, Malfoy!" Harry hissed, desperate to scream but not wanting to wake up the school.

"You make all the decisions, every time. And sometimes you make this decision, and you pretend you can't help it, but nobody else rams that powder up your nose for you, or sticks it on your tongue, or spikes your drink with it! You consciously decide to do it yourself!"

"And so would you if you felt like I do!" Malfoy's voice scraped audibly in his throat. "When I'm off drugs for as long as I have been this past couple of weeks, do you have any idea how it feels?"

"No."

Malfoy coughed again, his chest heaving with the exertion. "Of course you don't," he hissed. "Because it isn't as simple as 'oh, Draco's coming down, Draco feels sad'. I get so anxious that it makes me want to tear my fucking skin off. I'm sick, Potter. I can't sleep. I have hallucinations. And now I have the complication of trying to hide all of that from YOU!"

"I didn't know-"

"Of course you didn't!" he groaned. "Of course you didn't, because I keep it hidden so from you, so you don't try and fucking rescue me because I know you would if you could!"

He tightened his grip on Harry's shoulders and groaned in pain again. "Every time I open my eyes, Potter, I see my father. I see your fucking dead body, I see my mother screaming, and I see my arm out in front of me with a fucking skull-headed snake writhing on it."

He gasped for breath, his energy clearly waning with the effort of his speech.

"The hallucinations are hell. I want to get out of my fucking head so bad that I literally would die for it in an instant, but you always stop me every time I consider it. You don't even know you do it, and I hate you for it- I want to die so fucking bad but somehow you distract me and you make me feel like maybe everything isn't horrendous for a few hours, but it is horrendous really, and I hate you so fucking much-" his voice cracked.

"I know," Harry whispered, kissing his forehead, "I know you do."

He realised they weren't heading towards the hospital wing any more, and he also realised he didn't care.

"I hate you, I really hate you-"

"Come to bed, darling."

"I hate you so much."

"Come to bed."


	39. Not My Problem

Harry left Malfoy to sleep in the next morning and made his way down to breakfast alone.

Ron and Hermione moved up to allow him to sit between them, and the trio ate in comfortable silence with Seamus, Pavarti, Dean, Ginny and Lavender, while Harry wondered if he should confide in any of them about the night before.

Minutes passed and plates cleared, however, and by the time the Hall was all but emptied, a collective gasp arose from the green side of the room, and Harry's head snapped to follow the source of the surprise.

It was Draco standing in the doorway of the Great Hall; tall, immaculately dressed and visibly scrubbed clean again, all traces of soot soaked out of his hair like nothing had happened. He was whistling nonchalantly as he wandered over to the Slytherin table, and slumped down casually between Theo and Millicent Bullstrode.

"What the fuck is he doing?!" Harry hissed, more to himself than anyone else, but it was apparently loud enough for Ron and Hermione to hear, and they regarded him with interest.

"What's he doing wrong this time?" Hermione asked. "He looks normal."

Harry sighed. "He's good at that."

"Everyone's staring at him," Ron noted. "Is he alright?"

Harry paused. "He's a fucking mess," he said quietly after checking to make sure that the few remaining others around them weren't listening. "I had to save him after he all but drowned in the Lake in the middle of the night last night. Gave him the kiss of life and everything. And I hate that now he's just strolling about like it didn't even happen."

"The bastard's always thought he's some sort of God," Ron muttered. "Thinks he's bloody invincible."

Harry didn't bother to challenge him; it was true, more or less. He'd seen the cracks in Draco's mortality, but somehow the boy still managed to seem pretty much indestructible to everyone else. How did he bloody do it?

He was slightly concerned, however, about the fact that Malfoy hadn't been to hospital the night before. What if permanent damage had been done? It would be all Harry's fault for not taking him to Pomfrey. He hoped Malfoy would lie to his friends and just pretend he got discharged early, rather than admit the truth - that he'd slept in Harry's arms crying all night.

From a distance at least none of the serpents seemed angry as they swarmed around the blonde, and that was a relief to Harry. He needed the Slytherins on side at a time like this, and he knew they'd turn against him if they knew he'd just taken Malfoy to bed.

Harry watched as the boy helped himself to fruit and toast, but didn't touch any of the juice or coffee on offer, instead swigging occasionally from an embossed metal water bottle with identical thirst each time. Something about the sight didn't sit right with Harry, and then he suddenly realised why, and it enraged him.

He slammed his hair back, making several of his friends jump, and stormed over to the Slytherin table.

"What's in that bottle?" he demanded, snatching the flask from Malfoy's grasp. He was now the source of entertainment for all the students still in the Hall, dozens of eyes from all tables fixed intently on the scene. It wasn't exactly new, this sort of attention, but it would still normally have made Harry's skin crawl. Now, however, he was too blinded by rage to care about something so trivial as a few stares.

"What's in that fucking bottle, Malfoy?" He repeated, punctuating his question with a loud crash of the object against the table and making the cutlery rattle.

He leant in and Malfoy held his breath, but Harry could tell by now exactly what he'd been drinking. It was coming out of his skin, the smell of the wine he liked to crush his ecstasy into.

The bell for the start of lessons muffled Draco's response for most people, and reluctantly the other students began to leave the Hall with disappointment that they'd miss the rest of the show. Harry, however, heard his words loud and clear.

"Just let me have a little more," Malfoy hissed, reaching for the bottle. He was shaking so hard and looked so fragile and pale. "Just a bit and I'll stop."

"You always say that and you never do!" Harry snapped, feeling awful at the shock on the other boy's face but too angry to stop. "What am I meant to do, Draco? Answer me. What would you do if it was me? Would you let me throw my life away and die young like this?!"

He didn't like the silence that followed.

  
"Cool, so you _would_ do that," Harry realised. "You'd watch me poison myself. OK."

"I would if you wanted to be poisoned like I want it," Malfoy whispered. his eyes were grey hollows in his face. "If you wanted to escape your head the way I do."

As he spoke Harry could see the telltale red stain on Draco's tongue from the sweets he liked, the ones he used for his oral fixation and grinding when high, and the sight irritated him greatly. Once he'd thought it was pretty; now it was a sign of Malfoy's carelessness and self-destruction, a symbol of everything Harry hated.

"I can't believe how reckless you're being."

"Yes," Malfoy replied with a cruel and distant smile, "I'm a very irresponsible and badly behaved little rich boy. But what's the point in an inheritance if I can't spend it on drugs? That's what I say."

Harry shook his head, lost for words. "I'm going to find Blaise," he said quietly. "I need to talk to him. And I'm not doing this with you again."

And with that, he turned and left Draco sat completely alone in the Hall, his head pressed into his hands.

***

Harry's life felt completely ruined.

Ron and Hermione did their best to coax him out of his low mood, but the truth was that nothing really worked to distract Harry from the emotions surging inside him. It was a cocktail of anger, remorse, loneliness and anguish which could only be cured by Malfoy's presence, but there was nothing he could do to have that again.

March bled into April and the Lake stopped icing over at night, not that Harry knew about that. He'd been firm when he told Blaise he wasn't to be called again in the night for Draco, and the Slytherins had more or less left him alone since that discussion.

"I really mean it, Zabini," he insisted the morning after he last fought with Draco. The words were barbed in his throat. "Don't try and involve me again. I've had enough of him and his awful pain."

"If you're sure, Potter," Blaise had shrugged. "We'll do our best to keep him away from you."

And so they did, though there had been one occasion where Draco himself had come up to the dorms to knock for Harry, weeping at 3 in the morning.

His hands shaking, Harry had cast a Silencing Charm at the door, then turned over and went to sleep. "He's not my problem any more," he insisted to himself. "I don't owe him anything. I did the best that I could to save him from himself. He's not my problem any more."

But it was the hardest thing he'd ever done.

He'd taken to studying with Hermione every free period he had and throwing himself into Quidditch practice too, much to Wood's delight. And all the work was paying off - Gryffindor won match after effortless match (especially with Draco newly kicked off the Slytherin team, the reason for which was the source of a lot of school rumours) and Harry's grades just kept getting better.

But for every 'A' he got on an essay, every successful Quidditch game, Harry felt a pang of resentment, as these were signs that Malfoy wasn't present in his life any more. It just kept getting better without him. And he hated it.


	40. Meltdown

It was during one of Harry's nightly study sessions that all Hell finally broke loose.

He was revising Astronomy with Hermione (it was still not his best subject, even with Malfoy so often absent from the class these days) and it was going rather well.

The lights were flickering prettily orange over their work, they each had a mug of cocoa to sip while they worked, and Hermione was testing Harry on material for a test the following afternoon.

"True or false, a planet can travel through space without a parent star?" she asked, taking a slurp of her drink.

"Er, true," Harry nodded. "It would be referred to as an unbound planet, orphan planet, wandering planet, starless planet, or sunless planet. It's not very common, though, and it means the planet has been ejected from the planetary system."

There was a sudden slamming sound as the library door was wrenched open so hard that it bounced against the frame, and then Harry's own 'wandering planet' hurled himself into the room like a blonde whirlwind, ramming his shoulders into bookshelf after bookshelf and leaving a loud trail of destruction behind him.

A pot of ink cascaded from a desk followed by a flurry of spattered parchment, and whole shelves were wiped clear of their books with the force of his angry body.

"Mr. Malfoy!" Madam Pince exclaimed in a horrified tone, looking as though he was casting Unforgivables in all directions. "This is outrageous behaviour, I demand that you leave my library at once!! Professor Dumbledore will be hearing all about this!"

Draco ignored her, slamming hard into the next bookshelf so hard he yelled with pain; it teetered in place before toppling right over and sending damaged books in a tidal wave over the ground. Then he lunged for a vase of carnations on a nearby desk and sent them smashing down to the floor, laughing maniacally at the damage.

Madam Pince yelped and kept back to avoid the explosion of glass, but Draco was oblivious, already onto the next breakable thing.

"What the fuck is he doing?" Hermione hissed, horrified to see so many of her beloved books so broken.

"He's having a fucking breakdown," Harry replied in a horrified daze, desperate to give in to his reflexes and rescue Malfoy like he always used to, but utterly helpless and frozen to the spot.

As Madam Pince shrieked and squealed and other students watched on in disgusted awe, Draco began to dance on the wreckage he'd created, trampling the vase-soaked books and carnations with shoes that probably cost more than all the damaged works underneath them, and he laughed joyfully.

Glass pierced through his soles, but if it penetrated all the way through he didn't react, and instead began casting spells to whip the paper up in a blizzard around his head.

"Don't you see what I'm capable of?" he yelled, and Harry knew the question was aimed at him even if Malfoy's gaze wasn't. "Do you think you can ignore me now? This is my latest artwork, it's the best I've ever done!"

Shallow breaths crashed against his ribs, and Harry's words rocketed around his brain faster than he could read them.

_"I'm in love with you," he'd said last Christmas, "I'm in love with you, and I hope you know."_

Malfoy hadn't allowed himself to hear those words since that night, hadn't dared to accept such softness because how DARE Potter talk to him like that, with such kindness and open adoration? How dare he say he loved him when his own mother couldn't?

 _"Darling,"_ Potter used to call him _, "Come to bed, darling,"_ he'd say.

And he'd said other things too, like _"I will spend the rest of my life searching for someone who makes me feel alive like you do"_ , and the other day, before he ruined everything, _"You should always have good days"_.

These were all beautiful notions that set Draco on fire from the inside out, and it looked like the time had come for him to release it. _How's this for fire?_ he thought, giddy with power.

He became aware of Potter's hands, broad and strong - he'd know them anywhere - clasped on his arms and pulling him away from the mess, and he resisted violently.

"Draco, you're embarrassing yourself, come out of the way," Harry hissed, though he knew the other boy wouldn't pay much attention. "If this is all for my benefit then you can stop now, I get your point. I understand what you're doing. Just stop."

Behind him, Hermione was already casting the necessary spells to right the shelves again and repair the books and broken glass, and Madam Pince was still squawking about detention. Draco raised his wand lazily and cast a Silencio charm on the librarian, raising a loud gasp of shock around the room.

"You can't Hex a member of staff, you fucking terrorist," Harry snarled, shaking the blonde roughly in an attempt to bring him back to his senses. "You're going to be in so much trouble, do you realise that?"

Draco writhed half out of Harry's grasp, and in an effort to free himself he picked up a book and hit him with it at short range, square on the forehead with the sharp edge. It drew blood instantly, just below Harry's scar, and it trickled slowly down his face. It felt like betrayal.

Harry was still reeling from the shock when Blaise and Theo appeared in the doorway, and each of them gasped when they saw the mess the library was in. They wasted no time in wrestling their friend fully away from Harry ("I thought he wasn't your problem any more, Potter?" Blaise added snidely) and attempted to drag him out of the library, but he put up a good fight.

 _He's a fucking grenade,_ Harry thought; "Am I scaring you, Potter?!" Draco screamed.

Harry shook his head in a daze, too overwhelmed and distressed to form coherent thoughts. But no, he wasn't afraid.

"Blaise, don't hurt him," he said quietly. "Please stop hurting him-"

"We have to fucking hurt him, you moron, he doesn't know what he's doing anyway," Blaise snarled, struggling to wrench Malfoy's arms behind his back.

He groaned with the effort, then cast a _Petrificus Totalus,_ but Malfoy was a talented wandless wizard and deflected it quickly. There was almost no point Hexing him.

Hermione had done an expert job of cleaning up the library, of course, and was now casting the counter spell to release the librarian from her silence.

"He's done this before?" Harry asked, turning his attention back to the seething Malfoy.

"A few times, yeah," Blaise rolled his eyes. "It's kind of his signature thing. Library's a new place though, he normally fucks up the Common Room. And it's not usually this bad."

There was a glimmer of momentary pity from Nott. "Look, Potter," he sighed. "I don't know what's going on with you and him but why don't you just get yourself to bed, yeah? We've got it from here and I don't think he wants you around."

"No, let me help him," Harry insisted, and Malfoy whipped round with an expression of unprecedented rage, his eyes suddenly lucid.

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He was like a man unhinged, more wild animal than human as he fought to get to the dark-haired boy. Blaise and Theo were clearly having an issue holding him back, even between the two of them.

"Saint Potter," Malfoy hissed, spitting hard and wet in Harry's direction on the "P".

"Detention for the rest of the year!" Madam Pince called shrilly, but Malfoy didn't even hear her.

"You can't bear to have one aspect of your life that doesn't work, can you, can't bear to see something corrupted and not redeem it?!" he continued furiously.

"Can you get him out of my library?!" Pince shrieked, wringing her hands as she paced. "Wait until the Headmaster hears about this!"

Malfoy, unbothered, put on a grating approximation of Harry's voice. " _Oh, poor Malfoy, with his tortured childhood and his depression and his fucking ecstasy addiction_ ," he wheedled. " _Let me be his saving grace. Let me hold his hand_. It makes me fucking SICK, Potter, do you hear me?"

"Harry, ignore him," Hermione said urgently, placing a restraining hand on Harry's arm and pulling him back behind a desk as though she sensed his rocketing pulse. Anything to create some distance.

"Perfect Potter. Is there anything you can't do?" Malfoy goaded him. "Oh, yeah!" A vile grin spread across his face. "You can't let me fuck you without crying that you fucking _love_ _me_ -"

This was the final straw. Harry felt something inside him snap, and he lunged right over his desk to kick the restrained boy as hard as he could in the groin.

A low groan ripped through with agony tore from Malfoy's throat as Harry's foot made contact, and his friends' grasps relaxed just enough to him allow him to double over, gritting his teeth to stem his whimpers of pain.

"Are you a fucking _psycho_ , Potter?!" Nott yelled. "I thought you wanted to help him, not fucking _neuter_ him!"

"Detention for all involved for the rest of your time at Hogwarts!" screeched the librarian, looking like she might collapse. "Malfoy, Potter, Zabini, Nott, and Granger - no 'but's, Miss Granger! 300 points per student from their respective houses!"

"This is the worst day of my life!" Hermione exclaimed tearfully, and Harry had to agree it wasn't up there with his best either.

"Fuck you, Malfoy," he said, as the four of them were escorted from the library. He meant it from the bottom of his soul. "I hope you've got what you wanted."

His only response was a pained but triumphant grin. Starless. Sunless. Unbound.


	41. Kiss it Better

The first thing that happened after their long meeting with Dumbledore was that, while Hermione, Theo and Blaise were let off the hook, Harry and Draco were given detention for the rest of the term.

Harry knew it was a lot more serious for Malfoy, too - he'd been found in possession of Class A drugs on the school grounds as a result of his little explosion in the library, and Dumbledore was apparently in negotiations with Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy on the subject of Draco's return to school the following year.

"You did Hex a librarian, after all," Dumbledore noted over the lenses of his half-moon spectacles. "And you caused thousands of Galleons' worth of damage before Miss Granger kindly stepped in to clean up your mess. And the drugs issue ... this is something I cannot turn a blind eye on, Draco, you must understand."

The two boys were not on speaking terms since the incident, to no one's great surprise.

"They'll fuck and get over it, they always do," Blaise had rolled his eyes, but no one else seemed so sure.

The first detention took place the evening after the incident, and tensions were still running extremely high. The boys had been commissioned with the particularly unpleasant task of cleaning out cauldrons of Armadillo bile mixture in the Potions dungeons without their wands, and this only served to put each of them in an even worse mood.

Silence reigned over the room for a good half hour, apart from some irritable banging of the cauldrons and cleaning products, until finally Harry caved.

"Look, Draco, I'm really sorry about what I did to you," he began. He got no response, so he tried again. "I truly am sorry. I feel like such a twat, I just-"

Malfoy cut him off with a withering glare.

"So you should, you utter troll," he retorted. "Who the fuck lashes out like that just because they're angry?"

"You do, actually," Harry muttered, then flinched instinctively as he caught the other boy's eye. "Sorry. I'm sorry, OK??"

"You don't seem sorry," Malfoy replied with a curl of his lip. "Show me how sorry you are."

Harry sighed, exasperated. "Malfoy, I don't know what more I can say! I've said a million times that I'm sorry-"

Malfoy's voice was low, dangerous. "Show me on your knees."

Harry's eyes widened with realisation. "Like a kiss better?" he whispered.

He dropped to his knees softly, and Malfoy grabbed a fistful of dark hair to push his head right back for eye contact. His eyes swept the exposed skin of the other boy's throat. He could see the racing pulse in the sensitive hollow by his jugular, see the way his Adam's apple bobbed when he swallowed.

"Here?" Harry asked. Another gulp. He was anxious.

"Right here," Malfoy nodded icily. "I think you've got some making up to do."

 _I'm already in detention for the rest of my life and Draco's probably getting excluded - how much more trouble can we get in?_ Harry reasoned to himself.

He glanced furtively around the empty dungeon, shifted his position on his knees, then slid open Malfoy's robes to reveal that the boy was already hard. Harry began to plant butterfly-soft kisses on the exposed skin he'd hurt so much, soothing, healing kisses that made Draco shiver under his touch.

"Feel any better?" he breathed, and Malfoy nodded.

"A little," he said. "But you're going to have to do better than that."

"I'm so sorry," Harry sighed between kisses and the odd flick of his tongue over the warm skin that made Malfoy's eyes roll back. "I've never been so sorry, please forgive me for hurting you-"

Another kiss, another flick, higher this time, on more sensitive skin.

"Draco, I'm sorry," he whispered. The words were beginning to lose their meaning, but he kept saying them. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything I've done..."

"Show me," Draco whispered back, tangling his hands harder in Harry's hair.

He was still standing but he leant back against the cauldrons behind him for support as he began to feel more of the heat of Harry's mouth. His tongue moved faster, he wasn't speaking any more - now it was Draco's turn to apologise, he knew that -

"I'm sorry, Harry," he tried out the phrase. It felt foreign on his tongue, an unfamiliar roll, so he tried again. "I'm sorry," he said, "I'm so sorry.... Ah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

As Harry's mouth tightened over him, Draco's apologies became louder and more profuse, until suddenly it was all over, and hot shame drowned out all the remorse he'd previously felt.

Shame to have been seen so vulnerable, to have been made so weak as to apologise for his actions, shame to have given in so easily when he was meant to be ignoring the other boy - it was all unfamiliar and repulsive to Draco, and it clouded his mind with red fog.

"Get away from me," he choked as Harry swallowed, hastily zipping up his fly and pulling his robes around him.

"What?" Harry asked, a confused little smile on his face.

 _Fucking hell, he thinks I'm joking!_ Draco realised, and he groaned. "Get away from me, I said what I said!" he snapped, and Harry's face fell instantly.

"Did I do something wrong?" he faltered, getting shakily to a standing position.

"I just don't want you around me right now," Draco shivered, humiliation still coursing through his veins.

"You don't mean that," Harry replied, his skin growing paler and paler.

"I do right now!" Draco assured him. "I don't want you anywhere near me."

With that, a nauseous look came over Harry's face, end his eyes widened with hurt and shock. "I'm going to throw up," he mumbled, and lurched for a cauldron just in time.

Draco watched impassively as Harry retched into the dark depths of the container. "You're making more mess for us to clean up," he said irritably.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Harry turned around, wiping spit from his lips with his robe sleeve.

"I don't know," Draco replied honestly, and he seemed very small as he admitted that. "Something bad though, I think."

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that," Harry frowned.

Draco paused, debating. "I know," he sighed in the end. "I wish I wouldn't, too."


	42. The Words We Cannot Say

April the 12th was Draco Malfoy's last day as a Hogwarts student.

"You're lucky we didn't involve the Aurors, young man," Professor McGonagall had informed him brusquely when delivering the information of his expulsion. "Your behavioural misdemeanours this year were extremely serious!"

Was he supposed to be grateful? He supposed he was, but just nodded numbly.

"You have till Saturday to pack your bags and make arrangements to leave the school, Mr. Malfoy," the professor continued. "Your parents have been informed already-"

At this, Draco went very pale.

"-And I assume they will arrive on the morning of the 13th to remove you from the premises. Do you understand the reasoning for your expulsion?"

Draco did understand. She told him anyway.

"You are excluded for destructive behaviour, the violent attack of a member of staff, and possession of classified drugs. Do you have any questions, Mr. Malfoy?"

"No," he said quietly. "Though I hardly think casting ' _Silencio_ ' on a librarian constitutes a 'violent attack on a member of staff'. She's barely human, for Christ's sake."

McGonagall's eyebrows shot up in displeasure. "You would do well, Mr. Malfoy, to watch your tone!" she reprimanded him sternly. "Now, be on your way. Try not to cause any more serious damage as you leave."

Draco left in a daze, a million thoughts tearing up his mind. How was he going to tell Potter? He hated that that thought was at the forefront, but it really bothered him.

***

When he eventually managed to say it, it was on his last night at school. "I'm leaving tomorrow," he announced, as casually as he could manage. Harry was lying beside him in bed, the red drapes drawn and a Muffling spell cast for privacy.

"My parents are booking me into a very expensive rehabilitation facility," he continued airily. He had to keep talking, keep moving, distract himself from Harry's crumpling face. "They say I'm a colossal embarrassment, which I suppose is true."

Harry let out a small sound that sounded like a cry, and Draco brushed over it as quickly as he could.

"In the end you were right," he said, "I do ruin everything. And maybe now you can have a peaceful couple of years at Hogwarts without me to wind you up every day."

"I'll have a very lonely couple of years," Harry corrected him with a sniff. "I may never have been safe with you, but at least I was never bored. I won't know what to do without you."

"You will," Draco shook his head. "You always know what to do."

"Will I -" Harry's voice cracked, this was the hardest question. "Will I see you again?"

Draco knew that question was coming but it still hurt. "I'm not sure," he replied honestly. "As of tomorrow I'm barred from the school grounds, and I can't exactly imagine you visiting me at the mansion, anyway. And as for rehab - don't bother visiting me there if you aren't bringing ecstasy. I'll need something to while away the time, won't I?"

Harry laughed, but it quickly turned into a sob, and soon he was hysterical.

"Oh, don't, don't," said Draco awkwardly. "This is a good thing, remember? I'll get clean, and you'll get over me-"

"I won't," Harry wept. "I won't get over you. Not ever."

Draco's heart thudded. "I understand why you wouldn't," he replied in his usual arrogant tone, though it was harder to force than normal. He sighed, then dropped the pretence, it wasn't making anyone laugh any more. "Look, Potter, I'm sorry, alright? I wish things could've been different, too. I wish I wasn't like this. I wish I didn't ruin everything. But I do."

"You don't," Harry cried. "You make everything better, you make my life worth living. I wish I hadn't said what I said-"

"But I hadn't even thought about it before I said it out loud to you, do you know that?" Draco asked. "How do you undo me so completely?"

"I love you," Harry choked.

"Yeah. I know you do. It's OK, Harry. I'm sorry."

***

Then the morning came, and it brought with it a wave of hard feelings.

Draco woke first, and then Harry opened his eyes half an hour later to see the other boy hunched at the end of his bed.

"Morning," he whispered, and Draco jumped, clearly on edge.

"Morning," he replied awkwardly. He ran his hands through his hair in agitation. "Look, Potter, there's some stuff I have to do this morning, ok? Before I leave."

Harry felt a lump grow in his throat, thinking back to Christmas. Draco had left him then without saying goodbye - surely he wouldn't do the same again this time?

Seeing the panic, Draco's face softened slightly. "I've just got to get my bags and have a final meeting with Dumbledore and my parents, it's nothing major. And I want to see my friends. I'll come back for you though, don't worry," he mumbled.

"Will you?" asked Harry.

"You have my word." And with that, he was up and heading out of the dormitory, taking Harry's heart with him as he went.

***

Draco kept his word, and Harry was overwhelmed with relief to see him again when he peeled back the drapes of the bed.

"You came!" he sighed happily, and the blonde nodded.

"How do I look?" he asked, smoothing down his crisp black suit.

Words like _celestial_ and _radiant_ flitted through Harry's head.

_Like hope and tragedy and misery and bliss, lust and agony and desire. He looks like my aching soul in a suit._

Not wanting to weird him out, he opted instead for, "Great" as ever, and Draco smiled.

"I love you," Harry offered.

There was a tortured silence as the words hung in the air. He hated himself for hoping Draco would say it back. _Why can't it be now? Say you love me now now now, oh my God, he's not gonna do it-_

Suddenly Draco was crying, and the sight was so surreal it took Harry a second to react.

In that second he understood the pain and regret in Draco's eyes and pulled him hard into an embrace, tight enough to crush him.

"I forgive you," he whispered, without the other boy saying sorry, "I know what you can't say, and I forgive you for it."

Draco froze at the contact, then collapsed into Harry's arms, his body trembling with the effort of holding back sobs. "I can't look like I've been crying when I go back to my parents," he whispered, frantically rubbing at his eyes.

"You haven't got long, have you?" Harry realised.

"No," Draco replied. "I just came to say goodbye - I don't know what's happening."

"It's OK," Harry blinked away and eyeful of his own tears. It really wasn't OK, but he said it again. "I'll miss you."

"Yeah, I'll miss you too," Draco realised. Too little, too fucking late. "See you on the other side, yeah, Potter?"

He didn't know what made him say it: that particular phrase. And he certainly didn't know how appropriate it would become.

"See you on the other side," Harry nodded, the words sticking in his throat like hot glue.

And as he watched his love leave an ache grew in his chest where his heart should be, and it was the worst pain he had ever felt.


	43. Rehab

_April 17 1998_

_It's finally happened. The most terrifying thing in the world._

Draco stared numbly at the words he'd written in his art book, words he hadn't even managed to adorn with more than a vague serpent-like scribble.

He had known his parents would do something like this, but so soon? He closed his eyes and wished, not for the first time, that the darkness he saw when they were shut would surround him with open eyes too.

"I just want to stop seeing everything," he whispered to himself tearfully. "Because maybe then I wouldn't have to see what they did to my arm-"

He despised himself so much for permitting it to happen in the first place. It wasn't like he could really have said no, but to have actively allowed his parents to Mark his forearm the way they did... the way he'd been dreading it and then so readily accepted when the time came... it was hateful to remember.

"Be a good boy, Draco," his mother had whispered, while his father held up a clear bottle half filled with pearly looking liquid. They were stood at the end of his bed at the expensive rehab centre where he'd been for several days now, a place he'd already grown to hate.

"This is all yours if you make the right decision," Lucius had told his son in that stern, unfeeling tone. Draco didn't have to ask what was in the bottle, but it was extremely obvious that it wasn't just water. And he wanted it so badly.

 _I'm a teenager in fucking rehab and my parents are offering me ecstasy in exchange for my soul_ , he thought to himself. _This is so surreal._

And he'd thought about it, really he had.

But his thirst was overwhelming, he craved the contents of the bottle in his father's grasp more than he needed oxygen, and in the end he couldn't stop himself from reaching his left hand out for it.

It was a familiar paternal image, and innocent enough on the surface: the age-old tableau of a father passing a bottle to his little boy.

Except this little boy was seventeen and losing his mind. And the bottle in the father's hand was not nourishment, but instead spiked with almost enough ecstasy to kill his son. And in taking it, Draco was signing an unspoken contract that would ruin his life.

As his fingers made contact with the flask, Draco's sleeve slipped up to reveal the beautiful untainted skin of his left forearm. His parents' eyes locked greedily onto it and the boy allowed himself nothing more than a slight pang of regret at the sight. It wasn't nearly enough to open the gaping chasm of sorrow inside him and let his pain pour out. And not enough to make him feel better, either.

But then he was drinking, and his parents were nodding approvingly, and the familiar bitter aftertaste of the elixir let him know that what he needed was in there. And it was good.

They let him hit the peak of his high before performing the spells to Mark him.

It still hurt, of course it did.

_Anyone who says it doesn't hurt to have ink burned into the tissue of your arm with Dark Magic is a fucking liar, he wrote. It hurts like you're dying._

_And anyone who says they didn't vomit afterwards is a braver man than me._

_Or maybe they just weren't seventeen when it happened to them. Or maybe they managed to get higher beforehand than I did. God, I want to get high again._

Draco felt tears prick his eyes as he read his own words.

His mind slipped to Potter, as it so often did.

A quick glance at his page told him that he'd been absent-mindedly sketching the boy as he thought. There he was, only half-drawn, but unmistakably him. Angular features, open mouth, eyes that drank him right up. He was covered in love.

A sudden flash of white hot panic ran through Draco over the memory of what Harry might have seen in the book before. How long had he been sat there that morning? How had he managed to still love him afterwards?

He'd probably never kiss him again now he had the Mark. _He won't love me again either_ , he thought. _What if he's right, and I'll never find another like him?_

A lifetime of flings and minor infatuations had at one time sounded very appealing to Draco, but having tasted love he knew he'd never go back.

 _He knows what I think about,_ Draco realised. _What do I think about? I think about this Mark. Dying. My soul. His skin. My aching mouth._

He picked up his brush again, and sketched two more large, long-lashed eyes right over the picture of Harry, so his beautiful face was rendered behind the lids. If they were open the irises would have been his own grey.

 _It's him, every time I close my fucking eyes,_ he wrote. _He haunts me. Why does he haunt me?_

_He haunts me like all the things I could've done with his love if I wasn't so young and irresponsible and fucked it. I could have been loved so beautifully, I know that. If I'd let him._

_We could have had a love worth writing hundreds of novels about. Maybe we still could. People tend to like tragedies better anyway, don't they?_

_If I'd let him._

Tears were dripping onto the words as he wrote now, but he didn't stem them.

 _No point stemming ink or tears,'_ he wrote _, especially when they convey the same thing._

_And what they convey is my fucking misery. I've lived too much in these short years, and not always in the right way. And now I'm seventeen and my life is over._

_I wonder if Harry's thinking about me too. I hope he is. If he was here right now, I reckon I'd say I love him._

_If he'd let me.'_


	44. Wrong Side of the War

**a/n; this won't necessarily follow the exact canonic version of the battle of hogwarts, that would be a bit too much, but i've done my best!**

**

On May the 2nd, 1998, Draco awoke to the feeling of his Mark burning even more than usual. He felt as though a magnet inside of it was pulling him frantically towards something he couldn't recognise, and evidently his parents felt the same because they were up before the sun.

"Come, Draco," his father said, the most animated Draco had ever seen him. "It's time to begin!"

Draco didn't know what exactly was beginning, but it certainly felt ominous.

"Can you feel it, Draco?" Narcissa added. The same odd evangelical light glimmered in her eyes too, and Draco felt suddenly sick. "The Dark Lord needs his servants!"

I'm not his servant, Draco thought to protest, but then he felt another invisible tug from the core of his arm, felt the serpent writhe on the surface of his skin. The Mark said otherwise.

"Isn't it too early to discharge me?" he asked weakly. "I'm not finished with my rehabilitation courses...."

His father cut him off with a short knowing laugh. "Not too early for a Malfoy," he boasted. "You're too strong for this piss, Draco. Besides, today is more important - you get to prove yourself! Isn't that glorious?"

Draco nodded, his tongue feeling like lead in his mouth. Please don't make me do anything terrible, he mentally begged his parents. Please don't make me kill somebody. Nausea was still running high in his body, and he was terrified he'd humiliate himself and throw up on the floor at any second.

He forced himself to speak as he climbed out of bed and reached for his wand. "Where are we going?"

The answer was somehow worse than anything else he'd anticipated. "To Hogwarts, Draco! Can't you feel it? There's a war brewing."

It was all he could do not to lose consciousness right there on the floor.

***

The next time Harry saw Malfoy again, he was on the wrong side of the war.

His soul had felt restless in his body for some time, without the boy it loved. It was as though it no longer knew where to go. But suddenly there the two of them were on the battlefield. And each of them knew exactly where to go.

The Malfoys had arrived together, a powerful and intimidating trio, all identically well bred and beautiful and deadly. Malfoy looked better, Harry realised, better than he'd seen him in two years. The misery and terror was evident on his face, but under the expression he looked less gaunt, more whole.

The sky was already ablaze with the light of a thousand spells as Harry watched Malfoy cast his first, and the ground grew hot as it was scorched against and again by light from each side. Harry ducked and weaved round the deadly bolts of light, casting spell after spell of his own, and watching with horror every time anyone fell down illuminated in green, regardless of which side they were on. Death was death, he wasn't desensitised yet.

Glass shattered and rained down in handfuls as spells reverberated off the castle walls, and bricks toppled too like flying missiles. The only home Harry had ever had was being swiftly brought to his knees, and that hurt him immensely to watch. Flames licked around the edges of the battle as if walling the destruction in, and they illuminated hundreds of angry faces with a stark orange blaze.

Harry shot his spells rapidly and with little thought, unable to keep his mind off the friends who were fighting beside him, but making sure all the time to aim his spells off to the left or the right of the family 50 feet ahead of him.

 _If Draco goes down, I'll die,_ he thought, _I have to protect Draco-_

His train of thought was broken as he was hit in the stomach with a Flipendo (a Knock-back Jinx), the force of which sent him sprawling backwards on the flagstones and his wand clattering away under hundreds of feet.

"No!" Harry moaned, scrambling to his feet, but he knew it was too late as the dark Lord advanced. "Look me in the eyes, Potter," Voldemort crooned. "Let me watch the light leave them."

As he walked forwards, the dark wizard became the target of even more attacking spells, but his faithful servants advanced with him, laying down their lives in odd little rows behind him as they deflected the spells intended for him.

"Avada Kedavra!" the Dark Lord screamed, sending an unblockable bolt of green directly into Harry's chest.

***

Draco was bereft as he watched the killing of Harry Potter, and let out an almost inhuman wail as he watched the other boy's body crumple. Harry Potter, dead? The boy who fucking lived, dead??

"No," he croaked, "No, no, no,"

"Keep your mouth fucking shut, Draco," his father barked, digging his fingers as hard as he could into Draco's left forearm. "Don't mortify us."

The pain of the pressure against the fresh and burning Dark Mark was almost unbearable, but it was less bad than watching Potter fall, so Draco bit back his scream. His mind was swimming though, unable to even comprehend the event.

Memories ripples through the front of his brain; him and Harry lying in the wildflowers, the way he made the sun shine in the sky when they were together. In all the times he'd rescued him and taken him back to bed, Harry had saved more than Draco's life and he hoped he knew that. He'd saved his soul.

"Potter," he whispered, "Potter..."

His heartbreak was definitely audible.

***

As Harry drifted back to his body, the first thing he became aware of was Hagrid's firm huge hands cupping him to his vast chest, and the feeling of his sobs over Harry's head.

Stay limp, something told him in his head, you've got to pretend you're dead.

He let his head loll naturally back, let his arms bounce erratically with every step Hagrid took. He hoped it was effective.

Why hadn't the curse worked on him? That was something to work out later, he supposed, but still it bothered him.

His eyes flickered open, just a tiny crack, and instantly he met the eyes he wanted to see most in the world. Draco's eyes were blurry with tears and dismay, but they were still fixed on Harry's - and he noticed the jolt of realisation in them as they made eye contact.

 _Don't do anything stupid_ , he mentally begged his love.

He opened his eyes slowly again, and saw through the slats of his lashes the look in Malfoy's eyes, those eyes he knew better than his own. He realised with a shudder what Draco was about to do, and almost screamed for him not to. But Harry knew better than anyone what Malfoy was capable of if he set his mind to it, and how hard he was to deter, so in the next couple of seconds he watched in a mixture of horror and awe as Malfoy tore away from his parents and launched his wand at Harry, avoiding dozens of spells as they whizzed lethally past his skull. He was a target now, a traitor in front of his Master.

"POTTER!" he screamed; Harry's reflexes kicked in and he leapt from Hagrid's arms and caught the sailing wand in his right hand. Draco hurled himself in front of Harry's body as the world exploded with light, and the two of them crashed to the floor together in a small explosion of their own.

"Don't ever say I'm not fucking loyal," Draco hissed.

_And so we ignite._


	45. Run Baby Run

"Potter, take my hand and fucking _run_!" Draco screamed, dragging Harry up roughly by his wrist and bolting away from the inferno that was Hogwarts School. It felt like a volcanic eruption behind them as the ground shook hard enough to propel them both forwards onto their faces, but they were up again in seconds and running again.

"Don't even look back," Draco's voice was stern and commanding in his ear, "We have to keep moving."

So Harry fought every nerve in his body that screamed at him to save everyone else, and for once he just lived for himself.

His heart hammered against his chest as he sprinted away from the scene. The past events were already a blur, as though they'd happened years ago instead of minutes - could it really be that Voldemort was dead? Was the rebounded Curse all it took to kill him? What about everyone else? It had all happened so quickly he hadn't managed more than a quick glance before he was pulled away.

"Draco, my friends," he gasped suddenly. A horrible pain wrenched through his body. "Did my friends -"

Draco's grip on his hand tightened.

"I saw them," he replied as they stumbled down the hill towards the Forbidden Forest. "Granger and Weasley, at least - they were very much alive, Potter."

"Do you promise?" Harry panted.

"Yeah," Draco said, "I don't lie to you any more."

The seriousness in his tone assured Harry that he meant what he said.

"We just have to get away, or my parents will kill us both," Draco continued, his voice shaking as he spoke. "The fact that Voldemort's dead doesn't mean the castle's safe for us."

So they ran and ran through the Forest and out the other side, sprinting until their lungs heaved and they could hardly force their legs any further, and then they collapsed in a small alcove in the slope of the hill.

Harry was too numb even to cry, though he was slightly sick on the grass beside them both. There was nothing to throw up in his stomach so it was mostly spit and bile, but still an unpleasant feeling.

"Why did you save me like that earlier?" he asked when he was done, wiping a shaking sleeve across his mouth and Draco knew instantly what he was referring to.

He looked at Harry then, really looked at him. Took in the greenness of his eyes and the hollows underneath them, the way his eyelashes clung together slightly under the dark sweep of his eyebrows, and the dark blush of exertion on his cheekbones. The innocence in the curve of his mouth that just screamed to be kissed, and the way his dark hair always stuck up no matter what he did.

"Fucking hell, you're beautiful," he muttered, shaking his head. "And I think you know why I did it. It's the same reason I always call for you in the night when I get too high. The same reason all my sketches are of you."

Harry bit his lip. "I want to hear you say it." Quiet, only slightly pleading.

Draco lay down beside him then, and took Harry's face above him in his hands. His fingers traced coolly over the hot skin of his jaw, then found their way into the curve of his jugular. The blood was close to the surface of the skin there; he could feel it throbbing against his fingertips as he pressed. He opened his mouth to speak, but Harry pushed two fingers to his lips to stop him.

"Only if you mean it," he whispered. "Don't say it if you aren't sure."

"I'm sure," Draco whispered back, but Harry only smiled sadly.

"Would you rather just kiss me?" he asked.

Hating himself for being such a coward, Draco nodded. "I've missed this," he breathed.

The kiss was clumsy, slightly out of sync from their time apart. But it was contact, and in that moment they both needed to feel needed so badly that this imperfect kiss was heaven.

It seemed inappropriate now to be kissing after what they'd seen, but also somehow exactly what should have happened. They'd learnt to take love wherever and whenever and however it was offered, and if that meant kissing in a hill's hollow a couple of miles from the battle scene where they'd both nearly died, then so be it.

"What do we do now?" Harry whispered when he pulled back, leaning his burning forehead against Draco's. "What if our friends need us?"

"They don't," Draco shook his head gently. "They have each other and I need you more. But either way, you know we can't go back to Hogwarts. My Mark still hurts, which isn't a good sign."

"Your Mark?" Harry asked, propping himself up on one elbow.

Draco's eyes widened in horror. Of course, Harry didn't know - how could he? He thought about somehow playing it off as a word mixup, then decided against it. " _I don't lie to you_ ,", hadn't he said that to Harry just minutes ago?

"Probably easier to show you," he mumbled, pushing up his sleeve to reveal the raw skin where the skull-headed serpent lay. Harry gasped, a ragged breath that got audibly snagged in his throat.

"I know," Draco whispered, shame rising to heat his cheeks. "It's awful, isn't it?"

"The trials," was all Harry could respond. "Oh, my god, the trials-"

"Trials?"

"There are always huge trials after wars," Harry replied shakily, still realising the horror of what he was saying as he spoke. "You'll be tried as a war criminal, Draco - you were on the wrong side, and now you can't say you weren't because you're Marked - oh, my God-"

"It hasn't even healed!" Draco protested, frightened.

"I know, darling," Harry said, his voice equally strained. The nickname was a reflex response to Draco's fear and had just slipped out, but he didn't regret it. "We'll think of something to make sure you're alright, I promise. But that is fucking scary."

Dusk was drawing in around them, and both boys became aware that it would be cold soon. Early May was not particularly forgiving that year, and neither of them fancied sleeping outside.

"Shall we go and find somewhere to sleep?" Harry whispered into Draco's hair, and felt the other boy nod against him. There was a long and cold night ahead of them if they didn't move.


	46. How To Plan Your Lover's Trial

_Two months later._

"Another threatening letter arrived from Draco's mother this morning," Harry said, skimming the envelope onto the table in front of Ron and Hermione.

"God, what does she want this time?" Ron groaned as Hermione unfolded it. She ticked off her fingers as she read aloud.

"OK, that's defamation... that's libellous... that's slander... that's a threat... Harry, this is all nonsense!"

"Is this about the ecstasy thing again?" Ron frowned. "Why is she so desperate for you not to mention that when it's so useful in Malfoy's case?"

"I think the woman's got her priorities all out of order," Molly Weasley tutted, clattering a steaming plate in front of each of the boys before turning for Hermione's. "If it were one of my sons, I'd do whatever it took."

Harry sighed, and ran his hands through his hair. "She's not like any normal mothers though, Mrs. Weasley. Narcissa's the one who allowed him to get hooked in the first place. And besides, I think it's a Malfoy pride thing. Draco obviously doesn't want me to mention it either."

"Stubborn git." Ron shook his head, taking a big bite of the first sausage sandwich on his plate.

Harry and Draco had had a huge argument not long after the battle, after he'd been detained by the Aurors on Death Eater charges.

"I'll be your character reference in court," Harry had insisted, but he was met with a violent head-shake from Draco through the bars of his temporary cell.

"You can't, you idiot," he'd snapped. "Think that'll go down well with my parents? Having my gay lover speak at my trial? The boy who happens to be the icon of their opposition?"

"Surely the more it upsets your parents, the better?" Harry'd replied, bemused. "And surely my significance on the anti Death Eater front makes me a more respectable witness in court?"

"Listen, Potter. I don't want you to do it and that's that," Draco responded with a dark glare, and for a while, that _was_ that.

But as Harry chewed his breakfast in the Weasleys' kitchen that morning, a week from the trial, a new idea was forming in his mind, and he knew he wasn't going to listen to whatever Draco wanted this time.

"A significant issue with Draco's case is his Mark," Harry mused, taking a thoughtful sip of his tea. "It's cold proof of his Death Eater affiliation."

Ron and Hermione regarded him with interest.

"It's undeniable," Hermione nodded. "Very incriminating."

"More sausages, dear?" Molly interrupted with a smile and a laden tray. "Better get in quick before Fred and George are up!"

"Thanks, Mrs. Weasley." Harry smiled and offered up his plate, then turned straight back to Hermione. At the forefront of his mind, just out of reach, was a glimmer of a memory from a former Defence Against the Dark Arts class.

"How exactly is someone Marked, Hermione?" he asked, tapping thoughtfully on his glasses as he spoke. "It's nothing like a Muggle tattoo, is it?"

"No," she responded slowly. "It's much more complicated and involves a lot of Dark Magic. And it doesn't use regular ink - it's drawn in the blood of the recipient, which is what makes it so painful."

Harry gasped. "Oh my God, that's it! That's it, Hermione!"

His friends frowned, confused. "What's it, Harry?" Ron asked.

"We need to get Draco's Mark tested," was all Harry managed to say, choking down the last of his breakfast before pushing his chair back to run upstairs. "Thanks for breakfast, Mrs. Weasley!" he called, leaving his friends sitting at the kitchen table in bemusement.

"Thanks for keeping us involved, Harry!" Hermione called back irritably. "Glad I could help!"

"Thinks he's too bloody good for us," Ron rolled his eyes. "Bloody Golden Boy complex again."

***

Harry dressed quickly in a smart shirt and pressed black trousers borrowed from Percy's wardrobe, his best effort to look smart at the cells.

He glanced in the mirror and rubbed a little more gel into his hair, which was again swiped from Percy. Good. He looked as presentable enough; it would do.

"Are you going to explain what you're doing, or leave us in the dark?" Hermione asked when he reappeared.

"I'm going to see Draco," Harry said, lacing up his shoes meticulously. "Or possibly just his lawyer. I don't want to get my hopes up on it right now but I promise I'll explain if it works. Keep your fingers crossed, though- this could really win his case."

"We'll cross them," Ron rolled his eyes. "Have fun, Mr. Mystery."

"I will!" Harry grinned, and with that he was out of the Burrow and Apparating away to London. _To Draco Malfoy_ , he thought.

***

Draco's lawyer was already at the cells when Harry arrived, walking thoughtfully up and down in the corridor by the entrance.

"Potter!" he said in surprise when he saw Harry. "What are you doing here?"

"Mallory," Harry nodded politely, shaking the other man's hand. He respected the lawyer; he seemed like a genuinely decent guy. He wasn't old and stuffy like a lot of the usual Pureblood legal advocates, but sharp and not too long out of training, yet clearly knowledgable and good at his job. This all seemed like a good sign to Harry.

"I had an idea," he began. "But perhaps we could discuss it somewhere a little more private?"

The lawyer nodded. "Of course - I believe there is an interview room free down the corridor. Do you think my client should be present?"

"I'd rather get your opinion first," Harry replied. "Draco can be... a little touchy on this subject."

"I understand," Mallory smiled. He lead the way down the corridor to a little room on the left, and no sooner was the door shut before Harry started talking excitedly.

"His Mark, Draco's Mark," he said, refusing the offered chair and instead preferring to pace. "Have you tested it?"

"Tested it?" Mallory leaned forward in his own chair, clearly intrigued.

"Tested the blood used to create the image on his skin," Harry clarified. "I take it you know how such Dark Magic is performed?"

"I do, yes," Mallory nodded. He reached for a pen from his blazer pocket and twiddled it thoughtfully between his fingers; a reflex action. "What, precisely, would we be testing it for?"

"For ecstasy," Harry responded. "That would be detectable in his blood, right? Even long after the Mark was performed?"

"I expect so," Mallory agreed. "The blood is the ink of the Mark - presumably the contents stay in the exact same condition they were in when the Mark was made."

Harry felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his body, so excited at this news that he was hovering above himself. "If ecstasy is found in the Mark," he said almost gleefully, pacing quicker with anticipation, "Then that proves there was ecstasy in his bloodstream at the time he was marked."

Mallory's eyes widened with full realisation. "He was high when he was Marked, wasn't he?" he asked. "He couldn't legally consent-"

"He couldn't legally consent!" Harry echoed joyfully. "He didn't want the Mark!"

"Oh my God, this is a breakthrough," the lawyer breathed. "How didn't I think of this myself? That's wonderful, Potter, really wonderful thinking!"

"How soon could you get it tested, do you think?!" Harry asked, slight anxiety tinging his excitement.

Mallory frowned, thinking hard. "I'd have to Owl the labs... I could obviously pull some strings, get it fast-tracked, but the trial's in a week and it's possibly quite a complicated process. And of course, you're aware he'd have to consent to the testing."

Harry bit his lip hard. _Fuck_. That certainly was a spanner in the works. "I'll work on him," he said quietly. "I sometimes have a knack for getting him to do what I want. But you're right, that could present an issue."

"I believe that if we can do it, it'll be ground-breaking," Mallory promised. "Just ask him if he wants to make it out of these cells before they're swapped for Azkaban. Because that's where he'll be headed if he doesn't help himself too. There's only so much you or I can do if he's destined for something else."

"I'll ask him," Harry replied. "He never used to say no to me."


	47. The Trial

Draco consented to the testing surprisingly quickly ("I told you he couldn't say no to me," Harry smiled smugly) but on the morning of the trial Mallory came to Harry with urgent look in his eyes.

"Potter, we've not got the samples back from the lab yet," he said. "They're due to arrive with the medical expert as evidence today - we won't get to see them first!"

"Fuck!" Harry swore, scuffing his foot into the ground. "They wouldn't even Owl you a report?"

Mallory shook his head. "Top secret information, apparently. They don't send that stuff by Owl. It's infuriating."

"Beyond infuriating," Harry glared, and let out a loud, aggravated sigh. "OK, well, we'll just have to do the best with what we've got. I'll be a good character reference, you be a good lawyer, hopefully we have nothing to worry about."

"Hopefully," Mallory smiled wryly. He was really getting to like this Potter kid. He had spark. He'd make a good lawyer himself one day if he chose to follow that path.

"Come on, then," he said, slapping an encouraging hand on Harry's back. "It's time."

***

The trial lasted hours.

New witnesses came and went; there were classmates of Harry's testifying either with stories of Draco's bullying or of his rare kinder acts, there were servants of the Manor, a couple of Professors, Draco's godparents, and then finally it was Harry's chance to speak.

A hush fell over the courtroom as he rose: everyone recognised him instantly. He'd made sure to act as a caricature of himself with big thick-lensed glasses and his black messy hair pushed back in just the right place to reveal his scar.

And Draco had been right, Harry was a symbol of the side of the Light. Who better to represent Draco Lucius Malfoy than Harry James Potter, defeater of Voldemort, the Boy Who Lived, the furthest from a Death Eater one could possibly get?

He cleared his throat awkwardly and leant on the banister in front of him for support. He could feel the barrister's eyes boring into the back of him, but harsher still was Draco's gaze from his position on the right hand side of his lawyer.

 _Don't fuck this up for me_ , Harry could practically hear him thinking. Or even, _don't embarrass me. Don't make me vulnerable._

 _I_ _have_ _to make you vulnerable_ , he mentally responded. _Or they're going to assume you're a terrorist. I have to make you look as broken as you've been in my arms._

"Could you please state your name for the court?" said the Judge in a booming, oppressive voice.

"Harry James Potter," Harry said, willing his own voice not to tremble.

"And what is your relationship to the defendant?"

Harry swallowed. This was a hard one. "He's my friend," he said at last. "I'm in love with him, but he's my friend."

The collective gasp in the room wasn't stifled quickly enough by the jury and the onlookers, and Harry felt a brief flash of embarrassment before it died down as quickly as it came. _This is good for the case,_ he reminded himself of Mallory's words. _Anything to humanise Draco._

"I see," mused the Judge. "And how long have you known the defendant?"

"Since we were 11," Harry responded. "We met in our first year of Hogwarts."

"And what have you to say on the matter of Mr. Malfoy's charges, Mr. Potter?"

Harry swallowed again. He knew Draco was hating every second of this. "Draco Malfoy is the most extraordinary person I have ever met in my entire life," he said honestly. "I have seen more kindness and affection from him in the past year than ever from my own family-"

(Again, true, though Harry knew this was a slightly biased claim. But the jury didn't have to know how much Harry's only living family despised him.)

"-And he has become the most important thing in my life. He is creative, he's talented - the most talented wizard in our entire year at school - yet I have never seen him wield this superior magical skill for the purpose of deliberately hurting anyone."

 _He prefers to use his hands,_ Harry thought to himself wryly. Again, this was something he decided that the jury emphatically _didn't_ need to know.

"And since I've become close to him in this past year," Harry continued. "I have noticed a problem Draco's got in his personal life."

"Harry, please." Barely audible. Quickly hushed. Mallory had promised them both that drug offences wouldn't be added to Draco's charges if they were used as character evidence, and this knowledge emboldened Harry.

He could imagine the slow-burning rage on Narcissa and Lucius's faces if they'd been allowed to attend instead of sitting in their own cells awaiting trial, and this image spurred him on even further.

"Draco is a recovering addict," he said, his words ringing out confidently across the room. "He took ecstasy several times a week for the entirety of his past school year as he'd sunken into a severe depression and it was the only way he could get happy. The problem was only addressed when he left Hogwarts at the end of the Spring term, shortly before the battle."

"Objection; Your Honour, are we to understand that it was Mr. Malfoy's expulsion from school which lead to his addiction being recognised?" interjected the prosecution barrister. He was rather fish-like in appearance and had a needling voice, and Harry had taken an instant dislike to him upon meeting him.

"Objection sustained - Mr. Mallory, is this fact supported by the defence?"

Mallory nodded tiredly. "Yes, my client was expelled from school," he responded.

"Though are we not to consider the circumstances as the climax of a very troubled year?" Harry persisted.

"Objection!" barked the opposition again. "Your Honour, Mr. Potter is not a lawyer, I hardly think he should-"

"Objection dismissed," said the Judge with a wave of his pale hand. "I'm interested in what Mr. Potter has to say. Continue, Mr. Potter."

"Thank you, Your Honour," Harry gulped, pleasantly surprised. "I was trying to say, should we not consider Draco's expulsion as the final event in a list of traumatic incidents that year?"

No one made a response; the judge motioned for him to carry on. He could feel Mallory staring at him approvingly.

"Draco was a seventeen-year-old schoolboy plagued by his Death Eater parents all year to accept the Dark Mark," Harry continued. "He has been manipulated, gaslit, and emotionally and verbally abused by his parents for as long as I've known him and even earlier. I think you have to consider the reality of how hard Draco's life really is, that he gained a drug addiction at such a young age as a means of coping."

"Please," scoffed the prosecuting lawyer. "He's a trust fund Pureblood with money to burn. They're all sniffing or popping something, it's hardly revolutionary."

"Mr. Green, you'd do well to wait your turn," sniffed the Judge, and he was instantly silenced, mortified. "Thank you, Mr. Potter, for your input."

"While we're on the subject of my client's addiction, Your Honour," said Mallory, "I believe we have a spokesperson for the laboratories I mentioned earlier on, to offer more evidence. The defence would like to present Dr. Wolfson from the LCT Laboratory in London."

"Permitted," the Judge nodded.

Harry stepped down from the witness stand and dropped back into his seat behind Draco and his lawyer, neither of whom turned, though Draco's neck stiffened somewhat. Then he watched, heart in his mouth, as the elderly researcher took to the stand, introduced himself and began to unfold a sheet of parchment.

"As the court is possibly somewhat aware, Your Honour," the man began in a reedy tone, "The material used to inscribe a Dark Mark is not in fact ink, but the recipient's blood."

He took a breath, then continued.

"The laboratory was instructed by Mr. Malfoy's lawyer to run tests on the contents of the blood in his client's Mark. We were specifically examining it for traces of the Class A drug known as MDMA, or ecstasy, and of course you know that any trace of such intoxicants in the blood sample would render the participant legally incapable of consent. We tested Mr. Malfoy's Mark this week and the results came back today."

Harry clenched his fists at his sides so hard he could feel the grooves his nails made in his skin. _Please, God. Please. If you're up there. Save Draco._


	48. Redemption

"In Mr. Malfoy's blood sample we found about 750 milligrams of MDMA," said Dr. Wolfung, and Harry's heart soared with joy. He'd never been so happy to hear that Draco was out of his mind before.

"This is more than 4 times the average ecstasy dose; more than the amount of ecstasy needed to knock out any normal person," the doctor continued. "The sheer volume of the drug in his bloodstream means that Mr. Malfoy couldn't possibly have been of medically sound mind at the time of his Marking, or in the significant lead up to the event."

"Thank you, Dr. Wolfung," the Judge nodded as the researcher stepped back down from the stand. "Would the defence like to summarise this piece of evidence?"

Mallory stepped up gladly, and his demeanour remained cool, composed.

"My client has a drug problem, there's no denying that," he began. "But all too often we forget that addiction is a disease, and we instead perceive the sufferers as evil, or weak, or wilful. Why not instead let this fact humanise Draco? He stands before you, a boy with a confirmed medical addiction, which his own parents used against him for their selfish Death Eater agenda. He was coerced and manipulated into something he didn't believe in at seventeen years old - I request that the Jury ask themselves, what choice did this boy have?"

The lawyer let the question hang in the air for a second, glancing around the silent courtroom.

"Dr. Wolfung has confirmed there was enough ecstasy evident in Draco's bloodstream at the time of marking to knock out an average man. If you think that he could have been under the influence of that much ecstasy and still able to consent to the Marking, let alone rationally request it, you are mistaken in the eyes of the law."

Another pause as the words sank in. Mallory took a sip from his water bottle to soothe his throat; his hands were calm and steady.

"If Draco Malfoy is a Death Eater," he continued, "The question also remains as to why he would sabotage his own side in throwing Mr. Potter his wand at the end of the battle."

Draco shifted uncomfortably in his seat and Harry had to physically stop himself from putting a gentle hand on his knee. He couldn't imagine how stressful it was for the other boy to have his reputation debated in such a way, his Malfoy pride torn apart in front of an audience.

"My client didn't have to do what he did on that day," said Mallory, "And he risked his own life in the process. But in this brave and entirely selfless act, he single-handedly gave Mr. Potter the power to end the war and destroy Voldemort, saving hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. If it wasn't for Draco Malfoy, the world would be very different outside court today."

He pulled out a report from his briefcase, and smoothed it flat on the stand. "We also had a report drawn on the spells performed by my client's wand in the past six months - you'll see there are zero instances of Unforgivable Curses on the list, and nothing stronger than a _Stupefy_ on the day of the battle. And, interestingly-"

He pointed to the final spell on the list. "There is evidence that it changed hands to perform the _Expelliarmus_ spell that ended the battle. This proves it was thrown to Mr. Potter."

"Objection!" the prosecution lawyer whined. "This proves nothing of the sort - Mr. Potter could have wrestled the wand from your client against his will! There is no evidence whatsoever that it was deliberately thrown-"

"He did. I saw it." A little voice piped up from the back of the courtroom. Ginny Weasley was on her feet, as pale as Harry had ever seen her, but with a fire blazing in her eyes. "I saw him throw it."

"Silence in court!" frowned the judge, but Ginny was joined by another redhead at her side - "I saw him throw it too," said Ron.

"I saw him throw it," added Hermione in a clear, confident tone.

"I saw him throw it," said Fred, followed instantly by George.

"Objection!" snarled the prosecution, but the Judge waved a hand, eyes fixed on the unfolding scene.

"I saw him throw it!"

"I saw him too!"

"I saw him!"

"I saw Draco throw his wand to Harry Potter!"

Lavender Brown, Blaise Zabini, Theo Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Padma and Pavarti Patil, Dean Thomas, Luna Lovegood, Millicent Bullstrode - the list went on until all the Hogwarts students in the courtroom were on their feet.

Even the ones who had testified against Draco for his bullying, even the ones who still hated him to his core: everyone was on their feet and protesting his innocence.

Tears dripped unashamedly down Draco's cheeks, though he kept his gaze strictly forwards.

"This appears to be quite compelling evidence," the Judge smiled, his eyebrows raised in surprise at the event. "Normally I'd order silence in court again, but this is intriguing - all these students who supposedly hate the defendant, coming out in his defence... I've never seen anything like this before."

Harry's own eyes became glassy with tears as he got to his feet to speak out with his classmates. "I saw him throw it," he said. "And I caught it."

***

After Draco's acquittal, the verdict of "not guilty" rang in his and Harry's ears for quite some time. July that year was softer than usual somehow, as though someone had blurred the edges of the days, and summer was high in the air.

Harry and Draco's relationship was still a little cautious, wary, but war had changed them, there was no denying that. It stripped the capacity for malice away from them, so they were just two uncomplicated souls desperate to be around one another again.

"I feel bad about how things started with us," Draco announced one sunny day when the two of them were sprawled over the grass in the morning light. They were at the little place in the countryside that Draco was renting, and Harry had taken to visiting most days from the Burrow.

Harry turned his head to look at him, his fingers playing idly with stems of warm grass. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I shouldn't have taken advantage of you physically the way I did," Draco shrugged. He put a hand over his eyes to shade them from the blazing sun, and his other hand traced over Harry's stomach, causing ripples under the skin wherever he touched. "I felt bad after I notched my broom with your line, for example. That wasn't how your virginity should've gone."

"My virginity!" Harry laughed. "Wouldn't have thought you'd be precious about things like that, Malfoy?"

A small smile played over Draco's lips. "Normally I'm not. But you were special."

"Should've acted like it," Harry quipped, and the other boy nodded.

"I should," he agreed. He squinted at Harry out of the corner of his eye, and smiled to himself again. "Do you want me to take it again?" he asked.

"Take...?" Harry frowned. "Take my virginity? Bit late for that, isn't it?"

Draco rolled over so he was half on top of him, his breath honeyed and warm against Harry's lips. "Yeah, but I could still show you how it should've been done," he said. "If you'd like me to."

"I'm intrigued," Harry grinned. "What do you want to do?"

"Oh, it's not about what _I_ want," Draco replied with a smirk. "I want to bite you until little red bruises blossom like roses all over your neck and chest. I want to hear you breathe my name like you're crying. I want you to not be able to walk for a week. But that isn't how it should've gone the first time."

"No?" Harry breathed. "Sounds alright to me!"

Draco shook his head. "I should've kissed you nicely," he said, stroking back some of Harry's hair from his eyes. "I should've taken you to my room at least, and I should've said nice things to you-"

"Nice?" Harry laughed. "Do you _know_ any nice things to say during sex? I don't think I've ever heard you be nice!"

Draco smirked. "Wanna find out?"

"When have I ever said no to you?"

And with that, Harry followed his love down the winding path back to Draco's house, and while he wasn't quite brave enough to reach for his hand still ( _This is ridiculous, Potter, he's about to rail you and you can't hold his hand!_ he berated himself), it was enough to be near him in this light. Enough to be treated kindly again.


	49. When You're Ready

As Harry dressed to go back to the Burrow, Draco asked if he'd stay the night, and Harry looked at him, considering.

"No, I think I should go," he said, "I know you mean it innocently enough but my heart will take this more seriously than yours will. I don't want to rush this now we have a chance to do it right. I have to protect myself."

"I'm not going to hurt you again," Draco said awkwardly. "I ...I want you, Harry."

"I know you won't," Harry replied. "And I know you do. But it isn't enough."

"Can't you just stay one night?" Draco asked. A pleading tone slipped into his voice and he coughed to force it out, but it was no use. "Harry, I have nightmares."

"I know," Harry smiled sadly at him. "I do too."

"I need you." His voice cracked and tore a little piece off Harry's heart. "Harry, please."

"You need to learn to be strong on your own, Draco," Harry said, as firmly as he could manage. "I can't save you forever. Don't you see? This is what's fucked us up all along. You need somebody to save you, and that can't be me any more."

"You're - you're leaving me?" Draco asked, panicked. It sounded ridiculous, he knew, but he was really dependent on the other boy.

"Yeah," Harry said, surprising himself as much as Draco. "I am. For a while."

He allowed himself to look fully into the hurt on Draco's face, feel the other boy's emotions mixed in with his own.

"Where are you going? Will you come back?" Draco asked.

He was a vision, that boy. A blonde-headed angel in the afternoon light that poured through his windows and soaked his skin.

"It's more about whether _you'll_ come back," Harry said, lacing up his shoes. "I'm giving you this time as a gift. Get better with it."

Draco frowned, confused.

"Listen, Draco, I love you, alright?" Harry sighed. "And I'll always love you. That's a constant. I know it the way I know the sun will rise, the way I know the tide will come in after it goes out, and the way I know you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"But?"

"But now isn't our time," Harry conceded. "But one day it will be, and we can do things the right way for once."

"How will I know when it's time?" Draco faltered. "I thought this was just getting good again!"

"It is," Harry reassured him. "And you'll know. It'll be the day that hurting me hurts you more. Or the day you can say you love me and mean it. The day you find out what normal people do when they care about each other."

"What will I do without you?" Draco whispered. It was more of a question to himself than to Harry, but Harry answered him anyway. Gently, kindly.

"You'll do your art," he said. "Go away for a bit if you like, focus on yourself in some new surroundings. You should go to therapy, retake your classes, get a job that means something to you. Fall in love again, if you'd like to, though it'll hurt. Make better friends, eat good food, sleep well, dream lots."

He took a deep, shaky breath.

"And know that while we're apart, I'll be spending my time looking for someone like you until I see you again, and I won't find anyone. There's no one quite like you. But I think you're worth the wait."

***

A few days later, Harry got an Owl from Blaise. Draco was gone.

 _He's your bloody boyfriend, isn't he?_ The letter berated Harry angrily. _You're meant to be keeping tabs on him!_

"Not exactly," Harry muttered, but he read on.

_Neither Pansy nor Theo nor I have seen him since Monday and he didn't tell anyone where he was going. I'm assuming you know something about this - anything to do with him is usually also to do with you by definition._

"So it's begun," Harry whispered, and a small proud smile spread over his face. "He's really doing it."

 _I don't know where he is, Blaise_ , he wrote back quickly. _But I expect he's taken my advice. I suggested he should go away and find himself for a bit, get better on his own. I told him I'd be waiting for him whenever he's back._

He closed his eyes, and pictured Draco running away to live his life for a while. Where would he have gone? Not the Manor, of course, that wasn't home to him any more. Not with his parents in Azkaban.

And if he wasn't at the new place he'd been renting then that meant he'd found somewhere else - London, perhaps? Draco always loved the anonymity of a big city. Maybe he'd found an apartment in Camden where he could do his art, and wander up Primrose Hill in the evening to watch the sunset when the light was soft.

Or perhaps he'd gone further south to the beaches of Devon, got himself a little waterfront place in the way Victorians used to go down to the sea to get well. Harry couldn't picture Draco properly swimming, but maybe he liked a coastal walk, and skimming flat blue pebbles on the waves.

Maybe he'd gone even further afield, and was living in some tucked-away town in the Alps, or a remote Italian village in the countryside surrounded by wildflower meadows.

Wherever he was, Harry hoped he was happy. Most of all, he hoped he came back.

Now and again over the following weeks, he allowed himself to consider the other possibility: that maybe Draco would find himself and learn to live too well without Harry, and he'd get a letter someday in years to come, saying " _I've found someone else, stop waiting for me._ "

It was always a possibility, but a painful one.

The thought gave Harry chills, picturing himself having to tell the story, as he'd often thought he would, of how he dedicated his life to searching for another person to make him feel alive the way Draco Malfoy did.

And how he never found another like him.


	50. Darling (Epilogue)

  
It took almost two years, this waiting game of Harry's.

It was twenty-two months of carefully distanced friendship with Draco once the letters started, watching his progress slowly and supporting him, but never getting too close.

Twenty-two months of missing him, of yearning to hear his voice, of waiting up for him out of habit, just in case he'd come home to bed.

Then one day in late May, Draco did come home to him.

And he looked... brighter, perhaps? More alive? No, he looked radiant.

And he kissed Harry with the energy of all the lost time, and between their lips were months and months of agony and pleasure and memories that would never go away -

"What did we do to each other?" Harry gasped when he could finally breathed again, and Draco just shook his head and pulled him in for another kiss.

"God, I've missed you," he said breathlessly. "And God, I've been in love with you for so long."

"About time you realised," Harry laughed softly. "I have been telling you that for a while now."

"Oh shut it, Potter."

"Malfoy," Harry smirked.

" _Darling_."

A warm rush of contentment rolled softly through Harry.

He'd come home. He was better. And it was enough.

  
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 **a/n:** _so there we have it! the end! thank you so much to everyone who's supported me in this, it's been a really fun write._

 _and to everyone who always comments, leaves kudos and reads as soon as there's a new update, all of you have made me a very happy writer!!_ 🤍

 _i've got lots more works i want to work on next so don't worry, there's plenty more coming if you liked this fic_ 🤍🤍 _i'm specifically going to be working on "Where the Sun Drops" which is a post-war Drarry fic but there's other stuff in the background too:)) and as usual it's going up on Wattpad first (@PARADISEDRACO still) but will eventually upload onto here too!_

_lots of love and hopefully see you there_

_~_ paradisedraco


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